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LPU XIV Is Here!


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Looks like they've fixed whatever error wasn't letting me on the page with the LPU XIV CD...now on to the next most troublesome error: Is LPUTV not working for anybody else? All I'm getting is an "HTML5 player not found" message when I try to play any video on the site...

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Looks like they've fixed whatever error wasn't letting me on the page with the LPU XIV CD...now on to the next most troublesome error: Is LPUTV not working for anybody else? All I'm getting is an "HTML5 player not found" message when I try to play any video on the site...

Not working for me either. They still have some bugs with the new version. At least now I can use my account with my LPU 13 membership.

Edited by Mesck547
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Yeah, because a CD full of live performances you can as well watch on Youtube would be infinitely better.

 

It's like I said in another thread. I'm fan of LPU 2, 4 and 6. The mix of live performances, new songs and demos is perfect for LPU. It's my opinion and you don't need to agree with me. :D

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I agree that having select live tracks on LPU CDs again, particularly with DSPs going away, wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. The trouble is that there are SPECIFIC live tracks that would be best-suited for this idea, but I doubt LP would stick strictly to those tracks. I'm talking about things like a DSP quality recording of Castle of Glass (the original version), the only full live performance of ALTNC from the Harman show earlier this year, good mixes of some of the guest performances at the Concert for the Philippines/Warped Tour show, maybe something silly like a slightly more refined version of the "reggae" Burn it Down they do at rehearsals/soundchecks...or they could dig in the vaults and throw us a bone with a SBD of Nobody's Listening/Hit the Floor, that'd be nice. Basically limit it to "one offs"/songs we don't have good recordings of. But this is LP we're talking about...give them the option to include live tracks and they're bound to give us another LPU 3 or 7 at some point. I'll take CDs of nothing but instrumentals for the next 10 years straight before I'll put up with something like that again.

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Thanks to this site and the amazing members, I know everything I need to know about this CD and never have to listen to it now. LP Instrumentals, even for the album tracks, bore me to tears. Kudos to LP for making these available to those that are interested, but I'd rather they bring back DSP's or do a small (AFFORDABLE, even) club tourif they truly want to do something special for the hardcore fans.

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I won't assign "numbered" reviews to this one like I usually do, but here are some quick thoughts on each song...

Aubrey One - Guitars similar to Basquiat in the middle section, probably not intentional. Great eerie vibe, kind of a cross between Meteora and ATS in terms of sound. Intro drags on for longer than it should though. Can't imagine vocals on this one.

Malathion + Tritonus - "Malathion" is probably the actual title of the song, Tritonus references the studio in Berlin where it was recorded (they probably did another recording of the song in the U.S. at some point, so the title is probably to help differentiate between them). EPIC intro on this song, totally Metallica-esque once everything kicks in. Sounds more like a leftover from The Hunting Party than a 2008 demo. The riff at the end is NOT the 2008 Points of Authority outro as some have claimed. Definitely a similar turnaround at the end of the song, but still not the same riff. Also, can't tell if the drums on this one are programmed or not...the snare at the end sounds very suspect (maybe live drums with triggers on them?). If they're live drums, sounds like Rob used a double kick on this song, which would have been completely foreign to him in 2008. Maybe the drumkit at Tritonus happened to have a double pedal on it and he decided to use it on a whim? Wish there was more of a guitar solo on this one, there's a point in the middle where it sounds like Brad is about to launch into one, but he just ends up playing some long sustained notes over the top of the chords.

Berlin One, Version C - Probably another demo that was started at the Tritonus studio (hence the "Berlin" name), but worked on more later (hence the 2009 date and "Version C"). I'm ALMOST positive the piano in this was the precursor to Burning in the Skies. Same exact key and chord progression as the verses of that song. Hopefully we get notes from a band member on the tracks on this CD, because I'd be willing to bet they'd confirm this. Definitely a track that was still a "seed" at this point.

Blanka - You can tell this song was stitched together from a bunch of guitar riffs that were recorded at different points, there's no consistent tone on the guitar tracks here. Sounds like something that could have been worked into a full song, but the guitar riffs are so chromatic-based and jarring that I have a hard time imagining any kind of melody working over most of this track. Would've had to be either an all-screaming song or a song with Mike rapping throughout most of it and Chester doing the chorus. I imagine the band felt kind of limited in what they could do vocally with this track, which is probably why they scrapped it.

Heartburn - Very interesting instrumental backdrop on this one! Sounds almost like something that could have been used on the Mall soundtrack. Guitar also reminds me a little of the guitar at the very end of Robot Boy. This demo reminds me a lot of "Yo," in that it sounds like they had one interesting idea but it never got anything else added to it.

Breaking the Habit - Timeline-wise, this demo definitely comes before "Drawing" from LPU9. The guitar on the LPU9 version was re-recorded and a bunch of the instrumental stuff sounds a lot cleaner. The "Drawing" title should also technically apply to this demo, but we know how LP has been with working titles on LPU releases the last few years. Pretty gutsy of Mike to share this with us, as it's a VERY rough-sounding vocal attempt. This is like the very definition of "scratch track," Mike was clearly just getting the melody down knowing Chester would do a way better job with it later (Mike's told the story of this song many times, but the lyrical idea was one he had been working on for years, which explains the presence of full lyrics on an otherwise VERY early-stage demo). It also pisses me off that people are taking the "Pissing in the room" line out of context as something funny...it's a song about a person struggling with alcoholism, guys (we know Chester's substance abuse problems were largely what Mike wrote this song about). The person Mike's singing about has probably literally pissed on the floor numerous times because they're such a drunk wreck all the time. The broken glass on the floor in the next line is probably broken beer bottles. Read between the lines, for fuck's sake. /rant

Dave's Beat feat. Joe - Corrected the stupid typo in the title of this one. If it's like that on the actual CD case, I swear to God...but anyway, funny little LPU 8-style track with some hilarious use of Auto Tune. I'd assume Joe is doing the vocal on this. I actually wish this was longer, lol.

Froctagon - Holy awful sound quality, Batman! There's some straight-up Death Magnetic-level clipping on the guitars on this one. Gotta laugh at the bass-and-snare-only drums on this track, sounds like Mike did this one all himself, and we know he can't play drums for shit. He probably sampled the bass and snare on the kit at his home studio and copy-pasted a bunch to make the beat. The guitar "solo" on this is almost the same as the one on Malathion, haha! LP clearly wrote some really heavy demos early in the ATS process...and I can honestly say that all of them sound "forced" to some degree. I would have made the same decision in going with the direction of ATS if I knew this was what the early demos were sounding like. Night and day difference between "this heavy" and "THP heavy" a few years later.

Rhinocerous - There's no "u" in "rhinoceros," guys. But anyway...the trend of Meteora demos being instantly identifiable as Meteora demos continues here. Pretty cool synth and guitar stuff on this track though. I love the scratching noises that interrupt the guitar riff at various points too. The lead guitar line in the chorus sounds like something that would have been replaced with a vocal melody later. Would have liked to hear some vocals on this one...they clearly avoided almost all vocal writing until the last stage of recording this album. There are probably VERY few demos with vocals that exist from this period, sadly.

After Canada - Anything dated 2004 or 2005 is automatically interesting to me, because our knowledge of the band's writing/recording from that period is incredibly limited. Sounds like a demo that involved at least Mike and Brad (some of the guitar work on this doesn't sound like stuff Mike would do circa 2005)...maybe this is something the two of them did around the time Brad remixed Where'd You Go? Either that, or it's a VERY early Minutes to Midnight demo, maybe from late in the year. Parts of this song remind me a LOT of some of the background music from the LP Recharge game. Pleasant little song to listen to, but easily forgettable too in my opinion.

Overall, this is far from my favorite LPU CD, probably my least favorite in the post-LPU 9 era, actually. I wouldn't say there's anything BAD on it...but nothing really stands out, either. It's literally 31 minutes of total mediocrity, only broken up by the surprise of actually hearing a vocal on Breaking the Habit, and the comic relief of Dave's Beat. The last five LPU CDs, regardless of their overall quality, always had at LEAST one true standout track on them (Across the Line, Pale, Slip, So Far Away, Holding Company...to name one from each album anyway, some have more). I can't really pick anything from this CD...MAYBE Malathion, but even that track doesn't hold a candle to any of the 5 I just mentioned from past CDs. I can't say I'm "disappointed," because more demos are always cool with me, but I could easily forget most of these songs exist. Nevertheless, it's another new release in one of the best years for new/previously unreleased LP music we've ever had, and I'll at least have fun learning all the new guitar parts. :P

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I don't like Heartburn. Sounds like Chinese music, LOL.

 

Mike sing the verses of BTH is good. The choruses and bridge is definitely a shock. Sounds like he's trying to imitate Chester. A better vocal take would have been nice, but cool to hear Mike sing. The earliest recording of him singing we have.

 

Dave's Beat Feat Joe is a waste of space. Too short. I'd rather have more THP skits than this.

 

Very surprised we don't the songs from Mall. Who knows if we'll ever get any THP demos.

Edited by Southpaw311
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Mike sing the verses of BTH is good. The choruses and bridge is definitely a shock. Sounds like he's trying to imitate Chester. A better vocal take would have been nice, but cool to hear Mike sing. The earliest recording of him singing we have.

Dave's Beat Feat Joe is a waste of space. Too short. I'd rather have more THP skits than this.

Very surprised we don't the songs from Mall. Who knows if we'll ever get any THP demos.

1. No, it's not the earliest recording. So Far Away is. Also, the track has "stand-in" or "scratch" vocals. They are there pretty much only to give a basis for Chester in terms of melody.

 

2. Dave Sbeat feat.Joe is actually kind of cool. It's such a random thing that is the closest thing to a "cookie" track that we've gotten since LPU8.

 

3. The Mall Soundtrack is being released next month. That's why we didn't get them.

 

4. We almost never get demos from an album the same year it was released. Odds are we'll start getting them next year.

Edited by CASTLEOFSASSEXPERIENCE
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Some people seriously have a lot of nerve. Not liking the album is one thing, but actually criticizing LP because the album is comprised of mainly instrumentals is really bold. They don't have to release anything at all. A lot of bands have fan clubs complete with fees and all just like LPU, and they don't release demos from their vault every single year.

 

I'm thankful they share with us what they do, it's always great to me to hear their works-in-progress, and even some of their abandoned ideas.

 

We as a fan base are not entitled to hear every piece of unreleased music they have ever worked on. They release these albums because they appreciate their true fans. Personally I think it's awesome.

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...

Absolutely SHUT HIM DOWN lmao.

 

I'm really astonished that some people actually have the ignorance to say that what we're getting from LPU CDs are boring just because they lack vocals, for a variety of reasons:

  1. They're meant to be unfinished tracks. Out of the hundreds of LP songs they've made that haven't made the albums, do you honestly think that more than say, 5% of them actually made it to the point of getting vocals? Making an instrumental is one thing, but a melody is something completely different.
  2. How many other bands do this? Be grateful that we're not just getting exclusive merch, that we actually get pieces of their history.
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Isn't white in Spanish spelled "blanca"?

 

Yes, it might mean another thing in portuguese, or maybe they just swapped the c.

2. Dave Sbeat feat.Joe is actually kind of cool. It's such a random thing that is the closest thing to a "cookie" track that we've gotten since LPU8.

 

 

No it isn't there are a lot of cookies in LPTV's, I remember that I did an EP of those it was killed Kill The Deer lol

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ALTNC or Final Masquerade mixed in 2007 dsp style is definitely better than 0:42 sec long track "Dave Sbeat feat. Joe" or crackling **** like Froctagon

 

Why Lorenzo make a poll on LPU site what we want to see in LPU package? We get another bracelet, Guitar Pick and Sticker sheet, lame...not joining this year

 

Thanks for your feedback.

 

We listened to the fans, and took the poll results to create this year's package.

 

-Lorenzo

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