The Dude Reviews

I'm a dude who reviews things people send me.

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The Similitude of a Dream: Understanding What It Means to Have True Faith

Dude Notes: This was sent to me by Dan, a good friend of mine and someone who I called a mentor in my younger years. He sparked a love and deeper understanding of music that has stuck with me since I was 15. I can’t thank you enough for that. Enjoy, Dan!

What is faith? Faith has multiple definitions, and one of those definitions is  “something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially a system of religious beliefs”. Faith, especially in a religious context, can be a very tricky subject. How can something so subjective and fervently held by so many people be discussed in any meaningful way, especially to those who don’t necessary ascribe to that particular belief system? Many have tried, with admittedly varying degrees of success. There’s a fine line between true conviction and proselytizing, and more than a few religious acts fall into the latter category. Not so with the Neal Morse Band and their 2016 offering The Similitude of a Dream. 

Morse, a progressive rock veteran who first came to prominence as the leader of Spock’s Beard, fronted that group from its inception in 1992 to 2002 following a conversion to Christianity. Since leaving Spock’s Beard, Morse has had a prolific output in multiple supergroups as well as an impressive solo career, releasing an album a year from 2002-2014, between three or four separate groups. Most of his work, including all of his solo output, has had a decidedly Christian flair, whether that be about his own conversion (2002′s Testimony and 2011′s Testimony 2), a concept album about Martin Luther and his 95 Theses (2007′s Sola Scriptura) or about the 1678 Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, widely considered to be the first English language novel (2016′s The Similitude of a Dream). 

Anyone who listens to this album expecting it to be a complete adaptation of Bunyan’s work might be disappointed. By Morse’s own admission, The Similitude of a Dream only covers about the first half of the first part of the allegory (of which he apparently only read the CliffNotes), from the introduction of Christian and his crisis of faith (symbolized as the pack he carries on his journey), through his departure from his home of Destruction and the trials he encounters, to the House of Interpretation, up to his battle with the demon Appollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. Musically, however, the musicianship and production value on this record is top notch. With progressive rock and metal titans Mike Portnoy, Bill Hubauer, Randy George, and Eric Gillette comprising the backing band for this project, the band reaches new heights in terms of musicality; not one note feels overblown, self-indulgent, or misplaced. Everything is so finely crafted that to leave one song out of sequence would make the whole thing fall apart. 

Adaptive issues aside, The Similitude of a Dream is, if nothing else, a fascinating look into how Morse and others like him view their faith. A common theme within the lyrics (and the allegory as a whole) is that one knows nothing, and to have true knowledge, one must put their trust wholly in God and leave it up to faith, something that requires true conviction. That, in the end, is what the true meaning of religious belief is: holding on to that conviction and faith when others brush it aside and mock it; knowing that what awaits them at the end of their journey is worth more to them than anything that this world can provide: true meaning to all of the unanswerable questions. And in this day and age, that’s definitely something to be admired, no matter if one ascribes to a belief system or not. 

Standout tracks for this release include: “City of Destruction”, “The Ways of a Fool”, “The Man in the Iron Cage” “Broken Sky/Long Day”

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Twilight (2008) Soundtrack: A Time Capsule of the Tweenage Phenomenon

Dude Notes: This one was requested by my good friend Meg, and is my first film soundtrack review. Here goes nothing!

When I first was contacted to write this review, I thought to myself: How the hell am I going to do this? I was never big on movie soundtracks growing up, preferring instead the much more user-friendly musical soundtracks a la Phantom of the Opera or The Lion King. Those, at least, knew how to tell a story through music. Or, that’s at least what I thought before diving into this. 

The soundtrack to Twilight doesn’t really do the best job of telling the story of the film (or the book, for that matter; a hopelessly romantic love triangle between a vampire, werewolf, and a mortal girl who just can’t seem to choose between the two of them for a solid two novels out of the four book-long series), but that’s not really the point here. Most film soundtracks are meant to be there as backdrops to the film itself, noticeable exceptions aside (looking at you, Howard Shore), and this one does its job. Songs like “Supermassive Black Hole” and “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” do a fairly decent job at covering both sides of the “love” aspect of the film, the former being a testament to the early, exciting, forbidden love between Edward and Bella, and the latter showcasing the more mellow emotions that often blossom between two young (or in this case, young-ish) teenagers who truly have feelings for one another. 

The rest of these songs, barring Perry Farrell’s god-awful “Go All the Way (Into the Twilight)”* are more than serviceable at displaying the angst both the author and the film’s producers definitely want the intended audience of this film to feel, with two cuts by Paramore being highlights: “Decode”, about how Edward can’t read Bella’s mind, and how that affects their relationship; and “I Caught Myself”,  presumably about whether or not Bella really wants to continue the relationship she’s in with a dangerous vampire who may or may not one day either turn her or drink her blood, killing her.  So, bottom line: Would I recommend this? Probably not, unless you enjoy compilations about supernatural teenage angst; which, in this day and age, is anyone’s guess. Though I will say this: it is a fascinating document in a really weird time in American cultural history, a period of five years where this and its sequels was pretty much all anyone really wanted to talk about, if you were in middle or high school, and that’s definitely worth something to the right people. 

*This song is so bad that I’m convinced they added it in here strictly because it had the name of the move in the title. 

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The Inheritance Cycle books, from objective and subjective standpoints!

Oh man. This will definitely take a while but I am more than up to the challenge, @letmelearnyouathing.

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The first twilight movie soundtrack!

Can do! Expect it in about a week!

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Carrie and Lowell: Sufjan Stevens and the Beautiful Melancholy of Grief

Dude Notes: This is one of the first full album reviews I ever wrote, all the way back in 2015. This album moved me immensely back then, and it still does today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! 

Death is often a funny thing. It is a unique inevitability, in that it can happen anywhere, at any time, and in any way. What is also unique is how each person affected by a death grieves and comes to terms with it. Lemony Snicket once likened the death of a love one to “walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.” That sort of feeling is what is so beautifully portrayed on Stevens’ latest album Carrie and Lowell.

Named after his mother and stepfather, and written in the wake of his mother’s death (Stevens’ mother died in 2012 after lifelong battles with schizophrenia, depression, and alcoholism), the confusion of death surrounds the listener from the beginning. On the first track, “Death with Dignity”, Stevens sings “Spirit of my silence I can hear you/but I'm afraid to be near you/And I don't know where to begin…I forgive you, mother, I can hear you/And I long to be near you/But every road leads to an end.” This theme runs rampant throughout the entire record, and one can truly feel his sense of longing and helplessness during this turbulent time.

The listener gets the sense that Stevens really doesn’t know how to feel about his mother: his lyrics convey a sense of abandonment (“when I was three, maybe four/she left us at the video store”), forgiveness and loneliness (“I just want to be near you”), resignation (“we’re all gonna die”), suicide and anger (“Do I care if I survive this? Bury the dead where they’re found/In a veil of great surprises; I wonder did you love me at all?”), and turning to religion and finding no answers (“fuck me, I'm falling apart/My assassin like Casper the ghost/There's no shade in the shadow of the cross.”)

Through all the bereavement and grief, there is a quiet beauty in Stevens’ words. This is his most personal album; there are moments of stark realness ripped right from his childhood and adolescence. This is Stevens’ journey to make, his grief to feel. The listener is along for every moment: sad, happy, funny; everything he feels, the listener feels. The catharsis is wholly theirs.

Many say that music like Stevens’ is whiny, melancholy, and self-pitying for no real reason. However, every word on Carrie and Lowell carries that weight unassumingly, without pretention. These are the words of a man who has lost a major figure in his life. Even though his mother was absent for most of his life, she left an indelible mark on his life and way of thinking, and this record is the perfect tribute to everything his mother was, and also was not. She was not in any way perfect, and he does not paint her as such. He paints her as human, realizing that she abandoned her family because she knew that she was not yet ready or not able to make such sacrifices.

In a recent interview with Pitchfork, Stevens recalls the last time he saw his mother: “It was so terrifying to encounter death and have to reconcile that, and express love, for someone so unfamiliar. Her death was so devastating to me because of the vacancy within me...there is definitely a deep regret and grief and anger… But I say make amends while you can: Take every opportunity to reconcile with those you love or those who've hurt you. It was in our best interest for our mother to abandon us. God bless her for doing that and knowing what she wasn't capable of.”

The loss of a loved one is always difficult. It can be described as a crucible, a severe test or trial. The test does not matter. What truly matters is how one comes to terms with that particular loss. Grief comes in many forms, some new, some old. The important thing to take away from such a tragedy is this: Grieving is important, but so is closure. Closure is the best way to deal with a loss, and that is what Stevens has done here. Is this his best work? That point is debatable. But this is Sufjan Stevens at his most real, and that is what matters most.

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Intro Post!

Hello and welcome to The Dude Reviews! This, as you might’ve guessed, will be a blog where I will write up reviews on stuff I find interesting. This blog will be dedicated to things very near and dear to me - mainly music, television, and movies! Some posts will be albums, shows, and movies that I have seen already, but most of the posts on here will be completely new to me, or things I have very little background in. 

This is where you come in! I’ve set up my ask box to be a sort of suggestions area - if you have an idea for something you’d like me to review, send it over! I’d like to publish at least one review a week, but that can only happen if I have stuff to, y’know, review! I want this to be as inclusive as possible, so I won’t turn anything away unless I’ve reviewed it before. 

I’m so excited to finally be reviewing again, and I hope you’ll join me! My hope is that we’ll all find something new, and that we all gain a better understanding and appreciation for things that we might not have otherwise thought of. 

Let’s get started!