No Lifeguard at the Gene Pool

I love how tech metal now no longer concentrates with using its elevated technical skill to create more vivid and multifaceted compositions, but just to annoy the shit out of the listener. Really, look at bands like Orthrelm or Daughters: it's just music that's attempting to piss you off really badly. I mean, you can tell that that's the goal of many of these artist because they come out and say it openly! Of course, there's always some part of the musical community that will listen to it despite the joking nature of its existence out of some desire to seem avant-garde and surely above the teeming, cultureless masses.

Let me take a moment to teach you all that quality is not defined by how esoteric a piece of art is. Apparently some people believe that the way you show how open-minded you are is by worshiping the most stupid, trite crap. I find this to be an interesting phenomena, because it clearly hasn't crossed over anywhere really except music. After all, we're not all lined up to eat our own shit, are we? But shouldn't we be? Surely that's the most esoteric and difficult food to choke down, so Veronica Moser is surely someone to be revered as a god. A god, I tell you! Of course, when phrased this way, doing this doesn't make any sense at all, does it? So why should it make sense to be figuratively eating shit by listening to deliberately irritating music?

Because, guess what, kids: that's exactly what you're doing when you listen to Orthrelm or Daughters: you're eagerly sucking up whatever talented musicians are willing to shit into your mouth. Yes, obviously this technique isn't one exclusively found in 'tech' music, but it does seem to have the largest contingent of those ready and willing to exercise their retarded scat fantasies as quickly as possible. Stuff like Psyopus I can understand: they can be annoying as fuck sometimes, but at least those instances are typically few and far between, and they spend the time to craft actually interesting songs. But some of the others? Why? There's no reason at all to listen to it other than to impress your friends, or, more likely, yourself. It's a very selfish form of music.

As you may have guessed, Pillory is one such band that seems dedicated to annoying the shit out of you. I'm going to tell you what this is: Despised Icon with the speed doubled, too many pig squeals, and a bunch more atonal riffing and essentially random song structure. There you go. I'm sure that a great portion of you reading this right now are warming up their wallets already. Feel free. I highly encourage stupid people to lose their money as quickly as possible, so by all means, run out and buy 'No Lifeguard At The Gene Pool' as fast as you can. But for those that are a tad more discriminating in their tastes, perhaps you should consider the actual content here.

Guess what again: there is none! If one takes the opposite of silence as white noise, which would be the culmination of all possible sounds yet has the same effect as none, then having nine songs with the same structure is exactly the same as having nine songs with completely random structure. Sure, there's a superficial difference, but what's the point when the effect is the same? I can't pick any of the songs on this album out from each other, though I know how each will go. Lots of high-low atonal technical riffing, hardcore vocals mixed with an insane amount of pig squeals (which are supposed to be used to accent, not carry, the music), some fast drumming, and inane metalcore lyrics. Oh, and 'funny' song titles, because apparently combining wacky wordplay with overwrought, thinly veiled emo lyrics somehow legitimizes your lack of artistic integrity. Too bad EVERY METALCORE BAND IN THE WORLD HAS DONE IT, ASSHOLES.

The instruments are played well. How awesome.

Perhaps the greatest insult I can give to 'No Lifeguard At The Gene Pool' is that it's just not THAT annoying. I mean, it's mediocre, but I can tune it out very easily, much in the same way you tune out white noise or silence. Perhaps I'm saying this out of malice towards this breed of music: after all, if you can't actually be good, and you can't make people truly hate you, then what do you have going for you? Nothing. You just end up being one of thousands of other mediocre bands.

What an ignominious end for such 'independent' music.