Rock On! Collection - Skillet

Welcome back to the Rock On! Collection, a series compiling album reviews from my favourite artists. In this second edition, I will be compiling my reviews from Skillet.

I first found Skillet through the video game WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010, which featured "Hero" and "Monster" from Awake, and I instantly fell in love. However I did forget about them for a couple years but managed to refind them again and the rest is practically history. An amazing band with amazing compositional skills which ends up making amazing music.

As of 10/12/20, I have reviewed 5 of their albums. No new music has been announced as of yet.

Alien Youth (2001) - 6 / 10
Full review here.

Collide (2003) - 9 / 10
Full review here.

Rise (2013) - 7 / 10
Full review here.

Unleashed (2016) - 10 / 10
Full review here.

Victorious (2019) - 8 / 10
Full review here.

Rock On! Collection - IRIS

Welcome to the Rock On! Collection. The Rock On! Collection will be a series of my favourite artists and bands and the albums of theirs that I have reviewed. In this first edition, I am compiling my reviews of albums from IRIS, better known as Will Ryan of DAGames.

IRIS has quickly become a staple part of my day-to-day listening and I couldn't ask for much more. Each album and each song outperforms the last and they're just a delight to listen to. The connectedness of the albums with an entire story behind it is masterfully executed and is very intriguing. IRIS is an artist I highly recommend you listen to. Trust me, the music is incredible.

So far, I have reviewed all 2 albums released by IRIS as of 01/11/20, and a third one, Dawn of the Dimetrix, is coming some time within the next year.

Heart of an Artist (2018) - 10 / 10
Full review here.

 

Goliath's Throne (2019) - 10 / 10
Full review here.

DAGames' YouTube Channel here.

Skillet - Collide (2003)

After the techno-filled, semi-disaster album that is Alien Youth, comes Christian rock band Skillet's fifth studio album, Collide. Collide's musical style is vastly different to any album before it and is described as "classic Skillet" nowadays. With the more harder hitting rock style that Skillet has become known for, this album absolutely trumps any album before it. As well as that, this album and Comatose was inspiration for Fight The Fury, Skillet's metal side project, which carried on the heavier musical style.

Collide asks the question: "Can you hold onto your faith when you're surrounded by fear?" This theme is prevalent through out the whole album, is blatantly discussed in the eponymous song, "Collide", and the album art is described as such. The songs "Fingernails" and "Imperfection" fit the theme perfectly, with them being about failing to reach your personal aspirations and failing to love yourself, respectively. "Imperfection" also says that the person should not worry about themselves, and should learn to love and have faith themselves, not fear themselves.

Musically, Collide is astounding. Its style is so different to anything before it and it is executed so well. It starts off with "Forsaken", a hard hitting beginning track and that is carried all the way until the end, but with each track being "hard hitting" in their own sense. "A Little More" is a break from the jetpack joyride, boasting a more calmer tone to the rest of the album. Comparatively, Collide is a step in the right direction after Skillet's previous albums and is the beginning for the greater albums like Comatose and Awake.

I'm rounding off this review positively. Collide is a great album and the first stepping stone for great material that has since been produced by Skillet. The album's theme is easily identifiable throughout and is not lost in translation, so there's some bonus points. This is an album I thoroughly recommend

Favourite Tracks: "Open Wounds", "A Little More", "Collide", "Fingernails", "Imperfection"
Rating: 9 / 10

Enter Shikari - Nothing is True & Everything is Possible (2020)

With the most unique album cover and the strangest song name stylisations I have ever seen comes British rock band Enter Shikari's sixth studio album Nothing is True & Everything is Possible. A roughly 45-minute long electronic rock symphony from start to end, Nothing is True & Everything is Possible is incredibly pleasant to listen to and flows effortlessly from one song to another.

Before we move on, I'd like to note that this is the first album I've ever seen to have its track listing on the front.

Now, as with all the other Enter Shikari albums, this album touches on topics, mostly bad, that are present in the world. One of the most notable is "{ The Dreamer's Hotel }" which touches on today's social media and the outrage rampant throughout with the basis that everyone is too busy fighting outside of the hotel to even notice the niceness, the pleasantness, the friendliness that could be had inside the hotel.

Musically, Nothing is True & Everything is Possible feels like a combination between The Mindsweep, Enter Shikari's fourth album, and The Spark, their fifth. The more combatant, hard hitting music merges with the softer, more electronic vibes, producing something that is truly unique. Another wonderful thing about this album is how deceiving it is. I say "deceiving", because you really can't tell when a track has moved onto the next. This most notably happens with "Marionettes (I. The Discovery of Strings)" and "Marionettes (II. The Ascent)". This definitely makes it feel like the album is shorter, but the music is so glorious and singable, listenable, whatever adjective you want to add, that you don't really care.

At the end of the day, Nothing is True & Everything is Possible is one of the best albums of 2020 so far, in my honest opinion. The classic Shikari style is noticeable throughout with all the electronic synths and electric guitars you could ever imagine. This is an album I 100% recommend you listen to.

Favourite Tracks: "THE GREAT UNKNOWN", "{ The Dreamer's Hotel }", "modern living...", "T.I.N.A", "thē kĭñg"
Rating: 10 / 10

Skillet - Rise (2013)

Starting off 2020 in the ripe old month of February, I bring you Rise, the eighth studio album by Christian rock band, Skillet. Rise is different to other Skillet albums as it is a concept album. This means that the songs within the album tell a definitive story. It tells the story of a teenage girl coming to grips with the real world, once she has reached adulthood. All these large scale events are happening and the thing you should do is rise above it all.

I discovered this album shortly after Unleashed was announced and purchased it on iTunes. I instantly enjoyed it (it is a Skillet album after all), and it had me even more excited for Unleashed. But ultimately, it can't hold a candle to older material, like Collide, or newer material, like Victorious, so overall it's a mid-tier album. However, there are several redeeming factors about Rise. One thing I really like is some of the transitions between songs, especially between "Good to Be Alive" and "Not Gonna Die". It makes the album progress a lot more fluidly and tells the story to a greater extent.

Some of the songs on this album are absolute bangers and are worth replaying a million times over. Notable examples are "Sick of It", "Not Gonna Die" and "Salvation". These albums just resonate so well with me that I just love listening to them. "Salvation" is especially cool because the majority of it is not sung by John Cooper. Instead, the majority of it is sung by Jen Ledger, the drummer for Skillet. Other songs are good but not as good as these. On a technical side, the drums, guitars and other instruments are classic Skillet. Easily recognizable and easy to listen to.

Overall, Rise is an album that is good but is not up the highest Skillet standard. In recent times (from the style change in Collide), this is probably my least favourite album. It's good but it's nowhere near equal to Comatose or Unleashed.

Favourite Tracks: "Sick of It", "Not Gonna Die", "Salvation", "Hard to Find", "What I Believe"

Rating: 7 / 10