Album Review: Self titled by The Allegiance

This was another album that I got off the street at a comic book convention this time. I wasn’t even wearing my Sehnnhisers this time.

The Allegiance has a standard rock sound with some metal influence. The instrumentation is solid, but has a prefabricated, simplistic sound. The overall sound improves on a second listen, but it does not catch and would not stand out among the rest of my collection as anything more than good background music.

Similarly, the vocals are only average, neither attracting nor deterring the ear. Front man, Ben “shanks”(sic. They gave themselves nicknames) has a tendency to be inarticulate and cannot seem to make up his mind if he wants to be a metal front man or a rock front man. Either way the he would do well to articulate more and hone his vocal skills.

The lyrics are on the generic side, however they are pretty consistent with a band this green.

The bass work is solid, noting special, but nothing horrid either.

I could hear this band at a festival as somewhere around the 4pm slot, or perhaps as an early opener for a large rock show.

(2.5/5)

30 Seconds To Mars with Anberlin and CB7(unreivewed)

Venue: The Aragon Ballroom (4/6): The Aragon is one of my usual haunts. It’s a gorgeous venue with an ornately painted ceiling and ornately decorated balconies reminiscent of Spanish architecture, every time I visit the Aragon I notice another little detail in the painting or in the way the balconies are decorated. It is also one of the largest small venues in the area. Most hold about one thousand people, but the Aragon’s capacity is four thousand. It feels crowed even when it’s not that crowed thanks to how disorganized the place is. It is obvious the Aragon was not meant to be a concert venue. First, there is absolutely no ventilation on the floor. I’m not exaggerating. It feels like being outside on a humid day surrounded by people who are packed close together. It is hard to breathe on the floor itself, more so than even being on the floor in an arena. The “bars,” if they can be called that, more closely resemble kiosks at outdoor venues than true bars.
The sound system was particularly out of balance this time, but frankly it’s never been stellar. Everything comes out at the same volume, which often results in the vocals being drowned out.
The Crowd (3.5/6): I should throw in a caveat here; I’m comparing this crowd not to a normal crowd but to a normal Escalon (30 Seconds to Mars’ fan base) Crowd. They are normally quite a wild crowd. Not the case last night. However, part of that I don’t blame the crowd itself for (see below)

The first opener: CB7: I only truly heard one song of so I’m not really going to give a full review. What I did hear was decent but a little discordant. They also lacked energy. If I had to review off of what I saw I’d give them a 2.5/6


Second opener: Anberlin (3/6 live, 4/6 recorded): Oh dear. I was pleased when I heard that Anberlin were touring with 30 Seconds To Mars, as I quite like what I’ve heard of theirs on album. I have a feeling some of the issues I had with them stemmed from the sound system being off balance (example the fact that the instrumentation was not well balanced). Their front man was inarticulate and the band sounded completely uncoordinated and a little cacophonous. Except for the drummers. Plural. That earned them a point all by itself, because they were fantastic and had better timing than the entire rest of the band combined.
They did put forth considerable effort I will give them that. They tried; unfortunately their own issues combined with the sound system’s problems made them fall flat.


The Main Act: 30 Seconds To Mars:(4/6): What Happened? This is the band that made me extend my rating scale to six. They set the bar very high with their last two performances, so I was expecting a lot more than they put out. Don’t get me wrong the show was still amazing. 30 Seconds To Mars is always amazing, but front man Jared Leto relied entirely too much on the crowd for support. I love crowd sings they can be very cathartic and give a wonderful intimacy when done right. I’ve never before seen a band where I found there was too much crowd interaction. However, when the crowd is singing more of the songs consistently than the singer is there is a problem. Granted if any group of fans can carry that, it’s the Echelon, but we paid to hear the band, not our drunk fellow fans. It seems to me that Leto needs a break from touring to get his energy and his voice back in shape. He has a lovely, clear voice. The strain was audible. Leto still gave everything he had, but he didn’t have the usual explosive energy he brings to a show.

On the other hand, there was a lot of fan interaction and it was clear that Leto was putting fort the effort at least. What impressed me most was an odd bit of circumstance. This was drummer Shannon Leto’s first show back after being hospitalized for an extended period of time. I couldn’t tell. Normally when one of the members is ill or injured things are a little off. The drumming was flawless as usual. Bravo.

I should also add that it was still a good solid rock show, Jared Leto was a diva as always. I will come back if they do.