On the way home from my 1st grade daughter’s open house at her
\nelementary school tonight, I had the classic rock station on.
\nQueen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” came on and I screamed out the words,
\nhitting all the cymbal catches and the staccato piano notes. To
\ndate myself,
\nQueen’s Greatest Hits<\/i> came out when I was in grade school
\nand I loved the band. I listened to Queen every chance I got,
\nrotating it with my
\nXanadu<\/i> soundtrack (yes, with Olivia Newton-John and the
\nTubes). It was a great album and I never got tired of hearing the
\nsongs. I wore out my cassette because the music was amazingly
\npersonal to me. I felt the pulsating anguish as I heard the youth
\ncharacter’s pleas of “I’m just a poor boy from a poor family.”<\/p>\n
Let me be clear: Count the Stars’
\nNever Be Taken Alive<\/i> sounds nothing like Queen. The band is
\na quartet of punk-ish rock that has lived in my CD player for the
\nbetter part of 2003. I dare say that this is the CD of the year.
\nThe emotions of guitarist\/vocalist Chris Kasarjian, who is credited
\nas sole songwriter on each of these thirteen songs, are evident on
\neach track. “Brand New Skin” kicks the CD off on an energetic note
\nand the band never looks back.<\/p>\n
There is not a bad track on this release. Each track has
\nsomething, whether it’s Kasajian’s vocals, a guitar riff, the
\nmelodic basslines of Clarke Foley, the pounding beats of drummer
\nDavid Shapiro, the leads and backing vocals of lead guitarist Adam
\nManning, or the lyrics. There is something magical about this
\nrelease.<\/p>\n
Consider “First Time.” Kasarjian sings “It feels like, the first
\ntime, that I am standing on my own, and I’m not wasted tonight, not
\nwasted tonight.” Shapiro’s snare is tuned to a sharp crack and the
\nmusic allows Kasarjian’s vocal lines to breathe. “On the Way Home”
\nconfronts a relationship on the skids as Kasarjian sings “On the
\nway home, something’s go to give in, it’s so useless\/ to drag it
\nout this long, take your position baby\/ the opposition of me,
\nbecause there’s no way I will change . . . could we get past this .
\n. . this is the part where I give in . . . but it’s fine because
\nit’s all I’ve ever known in this life.”<\/p>\n
The band showcases its ability to get mellow in “Pictures,” a
\ndeparture from the frantic rock that makes up the majority of the
\nband’s material. Kasarjian weaves his vocals through a dreary,
\nsorrowful guitar tone as he sings, “And this head, this heart, was
\nbreaking apart by the start, so long, I’m gone.” Towards the end of
\nthe song, Kasarjian confronts his loved one with these words, “Did
\nyou know when you go, there is nothing here left of me\/ Did you
\nknow when you go, you take everything.”<\/p>\n
The band saves their best track — and remember, none of these
\nsongs suck — for the last song. “All Good Things” can best be
\ndescribed as the band’s version of Green Day’s “Time of My Life.”
\nThe song basks in the glow of a good time ending. “I can’t explain,
\nwhat made me stay, I fall into the same mistakes, like all good
\nthings, they never last, the past is past.”<\/p>\n
I missed my chance to see this band live. By pure coincidence, I
\nchecked the concert calendar of a local club the day after the band
\nwent through my area. Now, the band’s tour plans are on hold, after
\nKasarjian and his bandmates were in a serious van accident.
\nKasarjian had a collapsed lung as a result, according to a release
\nfrom the band’s label. All I can say is that if this band comes
\naround again, I will be there, holding my lighter (I don’t smoke
\ndeath sticks), and screaming the words with Kasarjian and his
\nbandmates.<\/p>\n
This is a stellar release, definitely within the top three of my
\npicks for 2003. Congratulations, Count the Stars. You made me
\nremember why I got into music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6915],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37712","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-count-the-stars","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37712"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}