Monday, November 3, 2008

Review: Chiodos- Bone Palace Ballet: Grand Coda

Chiodos is a great band (one of the best in the post-hardcore genre). Their first album All’s Well That Ends Well was by far one the finest sounds within their style’s scene. Soaring vocals, harsh screams, beautiful piano, tearing guitars, Shakespeare quotes… All’s Well… had it all. So the hype was high for the release of their sophomore effort, Bone Palace Ballet.
But Chiodos took a slight departure from the post-hardcore sounds of their debut. Yes, the screams were still there… just in a much smaller dose. Indeed “ballet” was a good word to use to describe the record as it had a, sort of, ballroom dancing feel to it. Luckily it was still Chiodos, and still very good music.
Now Chiodos is releasing a reworked version of Bone Palace Ballet (or maybe it’s more of a special edition… I don’t really know…) called Bone Palace Ballet: Grand Coda. With four new songs, two acoustic versions, and a bonus DVD, you are surely wondering if it is good enough to buy.
The four new songs are dispersed within the original songs and, overall, fit in very well. The style of these songs seems to fall somewhere in between All’s Well… and Bone Palace Ballet. They are each great songs (“Smitten For The Mitten” is by far my favorite), but because they are a little different, they seem to change the feel of the record. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but Grand Coda, sort of, has a different atmosphere than the original album, even to the point that Grand Coda almost feels like a different record. The acoustics are well done, but nothing to get too excited about.
The only real negative comment I have for the record is the absence of “Teeth the Size of Piano Keys”. I will admit that it is not one of my favorite songs by Chiodos, but I would have liked to seen it on Grand Coda. If they desperately wanted to keep the track listing at fifteen songs, I would have been more than happy if they threw out “We Swam From Albatross, The Day We Lost Kailey Cost” and let “Teeth…” come back.
The DVD is interesting enough. The main fare of the DVD is the documentary. It is shot pretty well, and it is fairly interesting. I tend to like documentaries quite a bit because they give you a good idea of how the band members normally act, and this documentary does just that. The live performances at Warped Tour are fun to watch and left me desperately wanting to see them live myself. The music video for “Lexington” concludes the DVD.
If you haven’t listened to any Chiodos yet, I would strongly suggest that you look into getting Bone Palace Ballet: Grand Coda. If you have already bought the original Bone Palace Ballet and liked All’s Well That Ends Well, then there should be plenty of new material for any Chiodos fan to justify buying Grand Coda.

5.7 out of 7

Highlights:
• Smitten For The Mitten
• Two Birds Stoned At Once
• … And Then The Live Screamed, “HELP!”

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