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| Maybe you heard about them from a friend; maybe you found them yourself because you�re just scene like that. Anyhow, at this point just about everyone has heard about The Legion of Doom. They started with four songs�three, after Taking Back Sunday decided to be pretentious (go figure)�that spread like the February flu thanks to Soulseek, KaZaA, and the like. Everyone was immediately wowed. The Legion of Doom were hailed as geniuses for tightly weaving together songs with deliciously danceworthy beats and clips from old movies.
So the starving people called for more� and they were given a feast. The opening mash-up is the infamous �I Know What You Buried Last Summer.� Anyone who is a fan of both songs that it�s comprised of, just one, or even neither (you liar) will be blown away by the seamless job that�s been done in making the mix. Buddy and Adam/John, and their respective bands, battle to be heard over a steady beat and snippets of conversation, and the result is incredibly cool. �Dottie in a Car Crash,� another one of the old demos, is next. This is one of the best examples of what The Legion of Doom are best at: often the vocals of one song will be played over the instrumental melodies of the other. I�ve been listening to this one for a while, and to my ears now it sounds like a meant-to-be collaboration that the two bands recorded together. The third track is legendary to me for mostly sentimental reasons, but apart from that, it�s a fantastically smooth and well-done mash-up. It�s probably the most stereotypically �emo� song on the album, but you�ve got to love it. �The Quiet Screaming� made my arteries writhe in ecstasy the first time I heard it� the two songs were blended together so flawlessly. Now we move on to the first �new� mix, �Dangerous Business Since 1979.� I love both �It�s a Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door� and �January 1979�, so I guess it�s only natural that I adored this track twice as much. In this mix, The Legion of Doom really show off the skills they�ve developed since the release of their four original demos. The alternating vocals fade from one band to the other without interruption, and the haunting �drowning in my sleep�� background chants of �Dangerous Business� even echo behind the main singing in �January.� I�d never heard Thrice�s �Under a Killing Moon� nor Alkaline Trio�s �Stupid Kid� before �Stupid Kill,� but I was familiar enough with the bands� respective general styles to enjoy Track 5 all the same. The same goes for �Destroy All Vampires,� My Chemical Romance�s �Vampires Will Never Hurt You� versus A Static Lullaby�s �The Shooting Star That Destroyed Us All.� This mix, though, features Triune, who raps to rock instrumentals while MCR and ASL take a break from duking it out. I really like the melody alternation in this one. It�s definitely one of the cooler genre-defying tracks I�ve heard. I�ve got to admit that I also hadn�t heard either of the tracks that make up Track 7: �This Year�s Most Open Heartbreak� (Funeral For a Friend) and �At Your Funeral� (Saves the Day). [editor�s note by Robby: she hasn�t heard �At Your Funeral�? aren�t there laws against that?] Nevertheless, I really liked the steady rock melodies, singing, and screaming set to a frantic beat reminiscent of what you�d hear in a movie fight scene. I fantastically fell in love with Track 8 for the same reasons. Listening to one Legion track exposed me simultaneously to a From Autumn to Ashes track and a Dead Poetic track that I�m sure I�d become obsessed with. Though I was unfamiliar with the separate songs, the quality of the mashing itself allowed me to appreciate the mix. I�m sure, too, that anyone who is familiar with and/or likes these separate songs I�ve mentioned would love the mash-ups that much more. And as for Track 9, I already liked the original Armor For Sleep portion of �Icarus Underwater,� so hearing it with Hopesfall and Planet Asia was really neat. This was one of the more mellow tracks, with the AFS parts played as if really underwater for a haunted effect. I bit my lip in anticipation as Track 10 started. I hadn�t heard �Ebolarama� before, but I was a fan of �Memphis Will Be Laid to Rest� already, and my inner hardcore/screamo kid was craving for something harsh and pounding after the more emo-y previous tracks. All I�ve got to say about �Ebola in Memphis� is that I was quite satisfied. Even the KRS ONE cameo fit just like a puzzle piece with the double bass and gratingly rough guitars. The following track is the lovechild of Coheed & Cambria�s �Devil in Jersey City� and Senses Fail�s �Lady in a Blue Dress,� which I�m sad to say was a bit of a disappointment. It wasn�t so much a mashup as it was a heavily distorted CoCa remix with some SF guitar and a few lines thrown in. �Threnody For A Grand� was a disappointment as well because, honestly� I was never into metalcore (or whatever you call it; genre-naming has never been my thing). Like I�ve been saying, though�if you�re into the songs that make up the mash-ups, I can almost guarantee that you�ll fall in love with the mash-up too. The penultimate track, �My Holiday Burn,� combines one of my favorite Get Up Kids songs with a Matchbook Romance track I hadn�t heard before. The songs really aren�t that similar at all in structure or melody, but good old LoD manages to make it magnificent. And now for the concluding track� which isn�t a huge surprise given the nature of the rest of the album. Everyone�s favorite tattooed acoustic emo god faces off against Sage Francis, a truly lyrically gifted rapper who spits words like Gatling gun fire. It�s mostly his thought-provoking words against the familiar chords and hook of �Hands Down,� oddly satisfying and a really perfect closer to this album. I keep saying �album,� but really, Incorporated is a collection of 14 songs floating around the P2P networks to avoid having to acquire rights and all that. It�s at your fingertips if you�ve got the three seconds it takes to type �I-n-c-o-r-p-o-r-a-t-e-d� into your search engine. If you think you�d dig any one of the mixes, go ahead and download and listen to the whole album�you may be surprised. I was. I expected that nothing could live up to the greatness of the original demos� and I was smacked in the face, handed Incorporated, and sternly told, �Andrea, this is awesome. Awesome, this is Andrea. For the next 52 minutes, you two are going to get to know each other very well.� ... A.A. '06 |
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| ::Reviews:: |
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| INCORPORATED Antagonist Records |
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1) I Know What You Buried Last Summer (Taking Back Sunday vs. Senses Fail) 2) Dottie in a Car Crash (The Get Up Kids vs. Thursday) 3) The Quiet Screaming (Dashboard Confessional vs. Brand New) 4) Dangerous Business Since 1979 (underOATH vs. mewithoutyou) 5) Stupid Kill (Thrice vs. Alkaline Trio) 6) Destroy All Vampires (My Chemical Romance vs. Static Lullaby) 7) At Your Funeral for a Friend (Saves the Day vs. Funeral for a Friend) 8) Lolita�s Medicine (From Autumn to Ashes vs. Dead Poetic) 9) Icarus Underwater (Armor for Sleep vs. Hopesfall) 10) Ebola in Memphis (Every Time I Die vs. Norma Jean) 11) Devil in a Blue Dress (Coheed and Cambria vs. Senses Fail) 12) A Threnody for a Grand (Atreyu vs. It Dies Today) 13) My Holiday Burn (The Get Up Kids vs. Matchbook Romance) 14) Hands Down Gandhi (Dashboard Confessional vs. Sage Francis) |
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