Tracklisting (58 minutes)
1. The old man in the sea (3:07)
2. Lie in (4:50)
3. Tired lover (3:19)
4. Take arms against a sea of troubles (7:50)
5. King of the jungle (2:52)
6. Red dream (4:51)
7. Sticks and stones (5:33)
8. Hands (3:56)
9. Over the clouds and beyond the sea (4:17)
10. American scheme (6:54)
11. Downpour (4:38)
12. Not the end (5:09)


Reported Failure's seventh studio album is called "Lie In." It is hard to discuss this album without the context of the band's previous work. They made three albums that didn't make a big splash in the mainstream, but their fourth album started a little buzz. Their first #1 single "Crumbling" was taken from their fifth album "Darkness" (2012) Each single went #1 on airplay and the album won fans choice award. It was an epic orchestral rock opera that had ballads and mosh pit pleasers. Reported Failure moved from a pop punk band in to more of an artistic post-hardcore and punk sound.

With 2013's "Rome" the band became even more legendary. Songs like "Lunar Utero" truly rocked and others like "Land and Sea" showed how Reported Failure could build a huge six minute progression and Billie could sing the most moving lyrics on top of it. This was Reported Failure's first #1 album. Complete with a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" the album had versatility and put the band at the very top of the rock game. The band spent time off. Billie Beckett took to criticizing the media for always hassling him and criticizing the corporate machine and materialism for a few months. He wrote a blog post in 2014 announcing that he was taking a break from Reported Failure and the civilized world.

That break ended when the band came back doing an interview and releasing a demo of "Take arms against a sea of troubles." The song was so heavy it scared some fans who jumped on the bandwagon of Reported Failure as a pop sensation in 2013, but it helped the group's credibility in the hard rock scene they come from. On the "Rome World Tour" the band stepped it up another level when they played 29 song set at the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool complete with a guest appearance from Amy Meyer and a series of Beatles covers. They released "Sticks and Stones" in December shortly after announcing they had entered the studio. The fanbase started to get fired up for a new album, but the band didn't announce anything for months. They released "Hands" in early April and it topped the charts. The fanbase became fired up knowing the album was coming.



"Lie In" is not a soft album. The sweetness of "Rome" is nearly gone. This album is hard rock. It is punk. It is heavy metal. The drums really lead the way on this album more than they ever have for the band before. The drums and guitar are in sync the whole way. The bass is versatile easily leading with a sick lick or riding along with the drums. Billie can be sensitive and calm but he spends most of the album absolutely going ham belting out, yelling, or screaming. It would be fair to call "Lie In" the band's hard rock album.

The influences on the sound of this album are a real tour of hard rock history. They go all the way to the '70s drawing at times on the sounds of Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie, and Black Sabbath. This is most noticeable with the bass and drums when they get in to hard progressions in the first half of the album. Sometimes the drums have a more structured punk sound reminiscent of the Sex Pistols. The guitar sound changes. One of the accomplishments of the album is just how many different tones the guitars have from song to song. In general Vin Peters plays with a Dead Kennedys sound on the more punk songs and a sound reminiscent of Rush on the more meal and prog-rock songs. "Lie In" is a real guitar epic where Vin Peters is the star. He knows exactly when to just rip it like he is Tony lommi. With his hair growing long he even looks like him. The vocals are varied. Sometimes Billie sounds like John Lennon in his calmer pieces. When he yells he sounds like one of the grunge-gods of the '90s.

Reported Failure really puts all of these sounds together. The production is really slick making each instrument shine clearly. While the band clearly works with the sounds already pioneered, the way the solid drums and screeching guitars pair with Billie Beckett's lyricism and swagger makes for an album that has a vibe of its own. The overall mood of the album is upbeat but heavy. The songs are very rebellious and some are uplifting. Some, however are sad. Unlike past Reported Failure albums the story told by the lyrics does not structure the album overall. Instead the sound of each song dictates the mood and the album follows a flow much more like a live show. It starts with a really raw garage punk sound for the opener "the old man in the sea." "Lie In" gets more in to progressive post-hardcore and "tired lover" is still wicked fast with raging guitars but sounds more alternative. "take arms against a sea of troubles" is a highlight. It has big energy and is totally metal. "king of the jungle" is so noisy and loud and quick its bound to be legendary at live show. "Red dream" is bound to make people in the mosh pit lose their minds. They don't bring the more emotional and less aggressive melodies in big time until "sticks and stones." While the next song "Hands" is a huge grunge anthem, the second half of the album shows a more melancholy, vulnerable sound overall. "over the clouds and beyond the sea" is the closest thing to a ballad on the album. "American Scheme" is truly epic. The guitar work on it is incredible. "Downpour" is another highlight. Reported Failure really bring the big sweeping melodies for this track which hits home because they are absent for most of "Lie In." Finally they close with "Not the end" which starts acoustic but is simply shocking when the band goes all out at the end of the song.

The songwriting is quality all the way through. Billie sings about an array of more political topics: industry, social hierarchies, the rock sub-culture, materialism, rebellion. He also covers more personal topics like love, moving on from relationships, asking for one more chance, trying to make a relationship last, regrets. One of the symbols most common in the album is the sea and water. In the first song Billie sings about a flood. He references Noah's ark on the title track. Billie's transcendental philosophies are evident on many of the songs, but the album does not have a single coherent theme. The theme of the album must be the lion. Staring us in the face on the artwork and full of beautiful color, the lion is fierce. Much of the album has a roar to it. The lion represents the attitude of Reported Failure as king of the rock jungle. Yet, it also takes on a sort of God status in the song "King of the jungle." The lion seems ominous. It represents everything wild, everything that is the antithesis of the domestic. The lion looks like it is suspended in mid-air. "Lie in" is not a work of realism. In fact, Billie often suggests that what is considered real ought to be questioned. The artwork is psychedelic. The sound of the album too sounds psychedelic at times. Certainly a whole lot of pot and some magic mushrooms might help us get in the kind of mindset to understand everything Billie Beckett is meaning with his lyrics, but mostly the songs speak for themselves.

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1. The old man in the sea


It begins with a bang. "Old man in the sea" is a tight song at just over three minutes. It is one of the heavier songs on the album and sets an aggressive tone to start the album. The title comes from the novel by Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea. Beckett's lyrics are cryptic while his voice and the music allow the listener to interpret a sense of feeling, almost empathy with the song's hopeless aggression. It is one of the rawest songs Reported Failure has ever made. They have made heavier songs but "Old man in the sea" lacks the more progressive metal rhythms and dramatic dynamics of much of "Darkness" their heaviest album, and lacks the epic ambiance of "Rome." With these aspects of Reported Failure's sound stripped away whats left is a take-no-prisoners attitude and four guys who grew up on punk rock.

Billie plays a quick little riff on his guitar. The tone is unsuspecting with a hint of reverb. This is how the album starts. There is a weird industrial noise in the background that is really just Vin fucking around with his guitar pedals. It is the bass that really starts things off. It's loud. It's fat. Matt Collins slaps that shit and Robert Edwards is a hard-hitter on the drums --the kind of drummer no one messes with who everyone looks at as soon as he smacks the snare --and Billie starts to sing in a way that makes you know one thing: Reported Failure is back.

The band knows how to refrain just as much as they know how to rage. BUM BUM BUM go the drums after the verse. BUM BUM BUM. Guitar joins in again subtly letting the tension build. Finally its too much. Billie screams "COME ON OPEN THE FLOOD GATE: TIME TO RECONCILE." Vin whispers it in the background to a chilling effect. The guitars come in. Matt is all about that bass, and Robert is steady. Finally it is Vin's time to shine reminding the world why no one will ever be sexier than a lead guitarist he unleashes a loud singing series of notes at the end of the second stanza.

From then on the group goes in full swing. Billie's unrelenting passion and snarl is reminiscent of Kurt Cobain. In fact, the simplicity of song's structure, instrumentation, and production has a recognizable Nirvana feeling only with a little more guitar noise as Billie lays down the rhythm and Vin lets the sweet tone flow. Robert gets in to it smashing the cymbals on beat after beat after beat. As one of the last verse winds down the band keeps going. Matt plays a hard hitting bass riff; the rhythm guitar rings out; the lead guitar plays a short, fast solo letting the guitar scream then fill the headphones with fuzz.

For the final stanza things settle a little. The guitar noise stays but solidifies in solid chords. The drums and bass synchronize to stand strong and let Billie deliver the last lines with honesty and grace. The band pays out like "we are punk as fuck" and then nothing but guitar tone remains until it is cut.

Beginning with the revealing line "I'm finally done believing in everything I've known," the song makes a strong anti-establishment statement. Beyond the title, Billie Beckett uses metaphors about water saying to "open the flood gates" and "let the ice melt." It sounds like a flood to wash away a disease. It wants in a word for fish. The song summons a feeling of loss. Or is it loss of control? Meanwhile the line "the old man in the sea" is the song, and the title reflects a feeling of fighting but for something ancient, something big, something bigger than "concrete" and "freeways." And its something for which he sings "I'll die my own martyr it'll be my wish."

I'm finally done believing
In everything I've known
I'm not done breathing
But I can't breathe alone
Take all my possessions
Take everything I own
I have some confessions:
I don't want the throne

Come on open the flood gates
Time to reconcile
If the freeway is the righteous path
To heavenly lifestyles
Then fuck it; let the ice melt
And it'll flood for miles
Its not justice
But it sure is a trial

I'm done searching the world for an answer
I'd rather just fight for the dancer

I'm making headway in my journey
To live a better life
I will lie in the dark now
And I dont need to breathe at all
Let the social construct crumble
Eroded in to history
I know I'm old and tired of swimming now
For I'm the Old Man in the Sea

Old man in the sea
Old man in the sea
Old man in the sea

I dont need the love of my homeland
and I dont need a concrete path
If I'm to die the only one hunting for the fish
Then I'll die my own martyr it'll be my wish

Edited by user 23 April 2015 03:18:03(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The fourth song of "Lie in" is called "Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles" and at seven minutes and fifty seconds it is the longest and one of the most raging songs of the album. It first surfaced online last year but now appears with slightly different lyrics and sleeker production. The song starts with a climax of tone from guitars left alone but soon is built by a booming bass progression and some of the more preachy of Beckett's verses. It doesn't take long to explode in to a loud guitar opera for the ages. It marks a change in tone on the album because of its length as well as the harsh heavy metal sound and the command to "Come take arms." It is reminiscent almost of bands like Black Sabbath in their fuzz-filled glory, and clearly is meant to appeal to the big hair headbangers and classic rock kids.

It starts slow. Almost silent. Slowly this tone grows from a crawling whining infant then finally standing until it has grown to a singing symphony of guitars left shaken then unsupervised until it is screaming. It is a dark, gloomy sound. Then it is silenced. A big, powerful bass replaces it. Matt Collins at his finest plucking away a progression to make all the guitar hero wannabes swoon. A shaker makes a subtle beat. Having picked up his guitar, Vin Peters plucks at different notes loaded with tremolo letting the guitar come in and out of view. A quiet whistling tone from Billie's guitar creates a full sound. Then comes his voice. Smooth and sincere. He isn't too dramatic but he is by no means subtle as he sings out fully. The melody feels uninhibited and effortless pouring out of his mouth like a stream of sweet honey.

The beat is steady and the bass keeps on going as Billie sings along for the first three stanzas. Robert Edwards as had little to do but he works in subtle taps on the hi hat and ride as the song progresses. The guitar also forms a more predictable pattern adding the the ambiance of the song with big sweet notes loaded with the punch of distortion and tremolo. Beckett dares anyone to question his oration letting the lines "Well it breaks my heart to know you/And to know where you belong" sink in with feelings of frustration in a static social and political time where people are put in their place with an iron fist. Bass fades away. The maraca shakes. The guitars sing. The tone of a free guitar starts to spring up again. Its almost time.

Vin Peters lets rip a single beautiful note that expresses just as much as even Beckett's most heartfelt lyrics. The drums come in casually staying calm and letting guitar take the lead. Matt Collins fires up the bass again. Everything is in sync. The stage is set. Beckett sounds more confident now with a full band behind him as he wails in a call to action "Break free from the path that's been laid." His passion bubbles and boils as the guitars grind and groan in the background, tired, tired of being subdued to let Billie sing. "If I am free am I still paid/To pay attention to a dying way" is sung clearly over all the noise as a tagline questioning what it means to be free if you have to reiterate and continue the ideals of a "dying way."

The guitars roar. It is simple. It is a quick and choppy chord progression. It is not subtle. It is not technical. It is a raw earth-shaking wall of sound. The bass and drums and guitar become one in an incredible rush of rock and roll. It feels empowering. Billie Beckett and Vin Peters have awesome chemistry as Billie keeps the chords going always and Vin has the freedom to shred some noisy, unknowable fills and play along with the chords. Robert follows along perfectly timing the drums with the guitar to really create the wall of sound effect. Matt holds the whole thing together with his bass completing the full spectrum of pandemonian noise.

Billie is energized as he delivers a heated poetic verse that manages to blend with the wall of fuzz but not get lost in it. He yells and sounds like a true God of hard rock. The entire performance is one for the ages. Robert Edwards beats the shit out of the drums. The guitars scream out in freedom. "Yeah live or die" shouts the frontman. It is epic. The guitars continue on long after all else in what sounds like it could be the end of the most surreal rock show of the ages, and the fact that it is captured on the album makes the song an undeniable highlight.

The title "Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles" is from the famous To Be or Not To Be speech in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Clearly, Beckett is well read and literary works resonate with him and influence his own songwriting. In this song he gives a monologue of sorts, urging us to "Come take arms" and "live or die." An anti-conformist at heart, Beckett sings "But I do not belong," and then urges us to "Break free from the pat thats been laid." All in all it is one of the less personal and more preachy songs on the record, but Beckett's delivery of the lyrics conveys that they come from a very personal and real place inside of him which makes it a great sermon. The final verse full of rhymes comes in the climax of the song as the wall of sound is roaring and it is also the lyrical height as Billie orders to "Reconcile your sins with the western sun/Let the earth be free to everyone/Or kill me now so at least its done/I dont want to live without anyone."

Come clean before everything is lost
I got a feeling like it will not be long
Before we hit the bottom of this thrilling free fall

Foraging for new consummation
Contemplating the end of this battle between weak and strong
The weak belong where they kiss the ring of the king
But I do not belong

When we learn don't we learn to belong
right or wrong its all about where we go
And not what we love but who we know
Well it breaks my heart to know you
And to know where you belong

Break free from the path thats been laid
Come make sense of how to misbehave
If I am free am I still paid
To pay attention to a dying way

Fighting to own the future
Its all we've ever done
And its all we have become
Come clean of the bitch and run
Reconcile your sins with the western sun
Let the earth be free to everyone
Or kill me now so at least its done
I dont want to live without anyone
This is all I want the men and women to come along

Come take arms
Come take arms
And live or die
Yeah live or die

Coming in the very middle of the album, "Red Dream" is a rowdy mosh pit anthem. The beats are shear metal; the bass is insane; the guitars mix the wettest progressive-rock tones with big fuzz; and the vocals are commanding. Coming right after "Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles" and then "king of the jungle" the track continues the heavy tone of the album. The main difference is that "Red Dream" has a more modern hardcore sound instead of a classic hard rock sound. In the song Billie imagines himself in a world that is red, the color of love, and violence. Red the color of passion. He really sings this one for the fans. It would be an epic part of Reported Failure's live show.

It starts with the most distorted noise. Vin just slashing is guitar making the kind of noise old people always complain about. Robert is just beating his drums. There is no order to it at all. They rage for about ten seconds then the first lyrics start. Vin and Robert just continue the wicked fast metal jam. Matt jumps in and Billie too on guitar. Its an overwhelming storm of noise encompassing all the noise. Billie sings high in is register and holds out the big passionate "red" and "nothing." This hook is chaotic.

Robert rides on the drums hitting the snare over and over and playing a fast flow of furious fills. The guitars chug along, but then the beat settles down. DUN DUN-DUN DUN-DUN drops the bass. Robert plays the perfect bet in time with it. Its a war beat. Vin plays his guitar to sound like distant metallic clanks and echos as if deep in a mine. Billie's vocals take on a defiant tone. They have a slight spoken word vibe, but still hold a stirring melody. He also adds his guitar playing a smooth pattern. This part of the song sounds more ordered and rational, and the vocals are the main focus.

The guitar is suspenseful playing a slow riff as the vocals end. Then the raw, disordered, yet somehow melodic noise of Reported Failure returns. Its time to start the circle pit! Billie's soaring vocals, Robert's pounding drums, and the fury of bass and guitar reign in the chorus first by repeating the hook. It all stops. A few big notes on guitar. Its all back with Billie yelling "Come tie dye me" at the top of his lungs. The drums are shear metal and the more prog-rock sound of the guitars compliments it well. The vocal melody is arena-sized, but could also be the most epic part of Warped Tour. Billie really belts out the last line, "Much deeper in to this red sleep" and then Robert and Matt transition to the big DUN DUN-DUN DUN-DUN without dropping a beat.

This second verse has the same format as the first. The most noticeable addition is a tremolo-soaked but distorted guitar that echos above the vocals. Whenever he stops singing for a half measure even, Billie is able to join Vin in gorgeous interplay between the two guitars. Instead of going straight to the chorus the group jams on after the vocals end. Vin slashes a mini guitar solo as Robert practices refrain on the drums building a sense of suspense. Billie sings the bridge with extravagance. He captures a sense of drama belting, "Just let me go just let me go"

The pre-chorus guitar riff returns. Guitars sing. The final chorus is doubled with slightly different lyrics the last time giving all the soldiers out in the mosh pit more time to battle it out for rock and roll. Vin plays and epic fill in the background like its nothing letting his guitar scream. The last growling note is released from the singer, and the guitar noise fades out.

In this song, Billie uses dreams as something utopian. His dream is better than reality. The fact that his dream is "red" is really up for interpretation, but red is the color of passion and if there is one thing Reported Failure has without a doubt it is passion. "Red Dream" really seems to be about what Reported Failure stands for as a band. He sings that "countries are lines in sand." Reported Failure is a truly international band that headlines massive world tours. He starts the second verse with "They tried to put poison in the air/They told me son go cut your hair" suggesting that "they" are a force of cruelty and conformity. Its a message at conservative America.

Two interesting things in this song are how Billie uses ropes and tying, and how he uses ink and how the two are married with the chorus when he sings "come tie-dye me." The fact that the song is heavy and clearly appealing to the mosh pit makes the song very much about the feeling of euphoria at a sweaty hardcore show. It is a passionate environment. People get hurt, even bleed on each other. "Red Dream" is about how Billie needs the crowd and how at a rock and roll show people can leave the parts of the world that they don't like behind.

I fell in a red dream
(RED)
Where nothing same
(NOTHING)

Countries are lines in sand
They wash away in the end
I want to see the water when
It comes crashing in to the land
I heard we are part of a whole
I heard that we share a sole
I want to know how in the world they
Possibly could tie that noose and pull

I fell in a red dream
(RED)
Somewhere they have never seen
(NO)
Come tie-dye me (I need you)
Come feed me your ink (and lie in me)
Come bleed on me I need to sink
Much deeper in to this red sleep

They tried to put poison in the air
They told me son go cut your hair
I'll set a fire to the rope because
There's no way they can tie me to the chair
I'm not saying the dark ages are here
But its wrong to live life in fear
And I want them to know they won't
Suspect a thing but one day I'll appear

And if they ever try to wake me up
Just let me go just let me go
And since they could never understand us
Just let it go just let it go

Come tie-dye me (I need you)
Come feed me your ink (and lie in me)
Come bleed on me I need to sink
Much deeper in to this red sleep
Come get on my skin (I need you)
We will all be insane (insane)
Come bleed on me I need to sink
Much deeper in to this red sleep

---

"Sticks and stones" is the seventh song of "Lie In" and it marks the beginning of the second half of the album. It was he first single released from the album and it felt very emotionally heavy then. Now with the other songs surrounding it, "sticks and stones" still sounds more painful than most of the other tracks. It has a very chill whispery verse, but a huge energetic chorus. The way the guitar tones play off of each other, and the drums keep things really solid to make a backdrop for the emotional lyrics makes this song shine. He sings about a woman who is no good for him. There are many layers to these lyrics too. Because it is one of the more puzzling, but also most powerful songs lyrically, it is a highlight of the album overall. And the arrangement sounds unlike anything on the radio making it unique. The jury isn't out yet, but this could be the next Reported Failure classic on the same level of "Lunar Utero" and "Crumbling."

A reverberated guitar clangs a simple chord progression. It is slow and sad. A sneaky lead lick comes in with the lightest touch of "wah" effect on the guitar. Neither guitar parts take up too much space. They are waiting for something steadier to join them.

Roar. The bass comes in. Robert Edwards' drumming has always been so confident, and this song is no different. His beat grounds the jamming riffs of Peters and Collins in time with Beckett's chords. The overall effect becomes chilling when Beckett starts to sing in a soft tone. He sounds hopeless. All the while the powerful bass foreshadows the noise to come. Vin Peters' riff too is cunning, giving a sense that something is going on in the dense ambiance of the verse.

More voices. Billie is joined for a moment in his passion by the whole band. Stomp on the pedal board. The chorus kicks in to overdrive. What was building subtly in the background has come to a storm of noise as Billie screams the chorus. Reported Failure is coming in heavy and they aren't fucking around. Vin plays a sweet guitar riff over the noise. Matt slams his bass his hard as he can. Robert pounds his cymbals. In this wall of noise, the group loses their shit.

As quickly as it started it was gone. The original beat and riff return. Beckett sounds like he is adding more details to a manifesto. This time when the chorus comes Vin is screaming right along with Billie. The overall effect is a madness of heavy noise. This noise continues in to a post-chorus. A fiery tremolo picking joins the guitar thunder. About three and a half minutes in to the song, Reported Failure wont let up. The chords swell in overdrive. The noise reaches a critical mass.

"I want you baby in my bones/You make the castle and give the king a throne" sings Billie as the noise fades down. Edwards' drumming is unbelievable, holding the shifts from loud to quiet together tightly. Vin clicks his guitar. Matt's bass doesn't let up. Billie says "Heard the rain is coming, babe" just before the hurricane of fuzz filled guitar and screams and bass and epic drums return for a final time. But Beckett makes the end up the song over the last fading subtle fills from Edwards, and guitar chords. His tone on the outro is defeated, but vicious. Billie Beckett will not go down without a fight.

Billie Beckett's lover, or the lover of whomever the speaker of the song is supposed to be, me be beautiful, but there is something sinister about her. This woman who has a constant presence in the "highways" and comes with a "sting" seems to have inflicted an intense sorrow upon her man. She may be going to tear Billie up, but he finds solace in the fact that he still has "sticks and stones." The sense of despair and hopelessness throughout the song mixed with fury give the impression that his lover has won, but that something violent brews inside the man she has wronged.

The lover in "Sticks and Stones" is perhaps not a person at all. The fact that she "makes the world go around" suggests that Beckett is using the lover as a symbol. She is desirable clearly. She wears diamonds. She is a beautiful blonde haired blue eyed woman. But above all Beckett screams over and over "I need her." She is an addiction. "The levees breakin down" is uttered in the background at one point. In a refernce to Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks," Reported Failure are suggesting that the addiction to the "lover" has reached a tipping point. When the levee breaks, and as "the rain is coming" it seems that the possession of sticks and stones may be the only thing that could help save our poor friend.


My lover has blue eyes
Golden brown hair its flying everywhere and
she'll take apart my heart
She wants everything in love
And love her from the start

My lovers hair isnt straight
She lets it curl and fly about
She makes the world go round
And she is everything (the levee's breakin down...)
She's in the castles and the towers

I need her
My lover needs to lie down
I cant help but feel
She's gonna tear me up tonight

My lover wears her diamonds
She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen
She's makes the world go around
And she is everything (the rain is coming now)
She's in the jets and all the highways

(We've been going so long)
I need her
(I've loved you so long)
My lover needs to lie down
(We've known each other so long)
I cant help but feel
(We've been drowning so long)
She's gonna tear me up tonight (I need somebody)
She's gonna tear me up tonight (I need somebody)
She's gonna tear me up tonight (I need somebody)
She's gonna tear me up tonight (I need somebody)

I want you baby in my bones
You make castle and give the king a throne
Cuz baby when the world leaves us alone
Its about what you own. Its what you own

Well baby if you want you can rule my head
You can be the princess in my bed
I just want you to come when I sing
I'll drink your honey and forget your sting
I heard the rain is coming
Heard the rain is coming
babe

I need her
My lover needs to lie down
I cant help but feel
She's gonna tear me up tonight
She's gonna tear me up tonight

Well you had caught me from the start
You can take everything in my head
You can have me you can tear me apart
If you lie in my heart you can lie in my bed

But even tough now I've come off the throne
All the stitches made have been unsown
I've still got something left I own
Got sticks and stones got sticks and stones

Edited by user 28 April 2015 03:56:31(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Billie: I'm glad you're liking it. Thank you. It is very different from the last album, but I think part of staying relevant is changing the way we sound. And we save the big melodic pieces for the end of this album. Those big melodies are what people I think loved about 'Rome' and we try to bring them a little bit but really make something that is like you said more raw overall. I think this record stands equal with the last.

"American Scheme" is a very dense song. Almost seven minutes long, it contains such rich musical and lyrical content that it may become the most mentioned song of the album. Somewhat of a ballad, but it has no obvious chorus. Rather it is a series of progressions by the band developing different hopeless melodies while Billie delivers six stanzas that tell a post-modern style story about addiction and America. It has a very raw sound and a subtle lo-fi feeling in the quiet parts makes the loud parts shine even more. The genre is hard to place. It has a strong post-rock influence, but when the band really gets going it is an epic orchestra of progressive metal. Similar to "Sticks and Stones" this song shines in its quiet parts just as much as its loud parts and has plenty of both. The vocals are so well done that we are really sucked in to what feels like a dreary daydream in the ever-twisted world of Reported Failure's darker consciousness.

Like many other songs on this album, the guitar is where it begins, with an overdrive pedal plugged in and the production left choppy like a basement punk show. One guitar showers us with rich reverb notes that sound industrial and the other slowly leads in with a melody on a cleaner tone. They do a little dance but then stop as Billie sings the first lines over a dark and distorted keyboard chord pattern thats been dipped in flangers and faders so much it blends with the guitars. The way he sings the song is as if it is an old and sad war song like the one Pippin sings in The Return of the King. His voice sort of drags on and on but he doesn't sound so angry as in many of the other songs.

Bass and drums come as soon as Billie stops. Both really solid but fairly slow. The guitars come back doing the same sad dance from before. Vin really gets a silky tone. They continue on in a slow rock progression until it comes to a climax. The tone of guitar flares up dramatically and the drums stall and the band charges. Thick, creamy guitar spills over in power chords and sugary leads. Their dance turns more breathtaking as they seem to spin around each other. It is masterfully played. All the guitars are like one. The bass plays a simple more menacing pattern. On drums, Robert absolutely shreds his cymbals and the other drums cut deep. In total it is an unstoppable flow of music.

The rush of music crashes but then becomes calm and reflective. In the bar after the flood, Billie sings "So I took it all and I took it all for granted" over a lone acoustic guitar. Occasionally a strike of distant guitar goes off like explosions heard from a distance. Billie sounds completely heartbroken. He has been brutalized and violated in a place where he thought only love was allowed in. He sounds scared. He sounds hopeless. He sounds completely defeated singing "But in the cold of night devils, devils they came and/I was left naked on the ground." As soon as these lyrics end the melody from the introduction returns. Slithering in and out of sight like a snake, the melody has been coming and going almost haunting the song. The keyboard plays a more melancholy tone now coming in for a few measures to supply rhythm. The drums join in so sneakily with tiny taps on the ride. They become progressively less soft. A snare is mixed in. The guitar dance gets bigger with one guitar playing very atmospheric leads creating a wall of sound. The bass just gets heavier and heavier leading in to a fortissimo section with every instrument blaring in wave after wave. It is a very heavy post-rock whirlpool and Billie Beckett's third stanza comes in strong as he holds steady notes. This section of the song comes to a big climax when Billie screams out the song's title.

Just as the song was slow to climb to this first climax, it is slow to fall from it. The instruments still hang in an all-consuming blanket of noise. The drums take a prominent place in the recording. The bass is drawn out and dark. The guitars float on with lots of distortion and tone but at about four minutes in to the song they start to slow. They really sing and bark with each note having its own voice. The keyboard comes back this time sounding more like an actual piano than before. This part is more experimental as the synchronization of the instruments slowly falls apart each of them going their own way. Melody has gone. It is an abstract sea of different notes.

At about four minutes and thirty seconds the progression falls apart completely and the instruments all fade out. Again, the slithering guitar melody returns gliding and hissing. Subtle tremolo tone from the other guitar joins. They have begun the dance anew. Deep war drums thunder in as Billie starts to sing beginning with the line "How many drugs can we take at once in this town." He starts out quiet as if shy. The beat here is a highlight of the song. Billie's cynical melody fits colorfully in to the guitar melody. Bass joins in playing whole notes. Billie gets louder as the verse goes on. The keyboard returns once again juxtaposing well with the guitar. Bass thunders on changing to quarter notes suddenly to make the progression more intense. Finally Billie starts to build up his confidence at the end of this verse. He really lets his feelings go not being afraid to sound vulnerable. Finally he steps in to the spotlight thundering over the instruments with emotion before singing at the top of his lungs "I JUST WANT TO LIVE." Its almost melodramatic, but it is clearly intentional.

With only a minute left in the song, Reported Failure enters one final movement. The guitar sings in the atmosphere, and the bass and drums are tremendously heavy. But they soon stop and give Billie the last word of the song. He sings the same melody as the very first stanza. They also begin with similar lyrics. He sings in the same gloomy fashion leaving us with a feeling of being emotionally beaten and left for dead. Only an acoustic guitar strumming on every whole note and a couple shimmers of distant guitar noise accompany him. Soon it is only him and the acoustic. It feels lonely. And that is how it ends.

The song's title is an obvious play on words of "American Dream." Billie seems to switch from giving us orders in the first and part of the fourth stanzas and speaking about his own feelings and experiences in the rest. The narration on this song is shaded in metaphors from the beginning to the end, so the story is disjointed. The song tells the story of a drug addict, but his addiction is not a typical drug. The first stanza tells us the story of how he came to be addicted, and later Billie names the addiction saying "its the American Scheme." The scheme for Billie is some version of the ideal the American Dream. He describes houses with extra rooms, big lawns, gated communities, and decorated mantles.

In framing the normal ideals of what it means to make it in America as a drug, Billie gets very provocative with his lyrics. The second stanza is delivered with the most heart-broken tone that he is able to summon on the entire album. He sings "But in the cold of night devils, devils they came and/I was left naked on the ground." Stripped of all the materials that had given him comfort, Billie is confronted in the cold of night by the darker side of humanity. What makes it most provocative is how his description of being naked works with lines like "I want it to stop," "You have to take it all/And never say no," and "I dont want to do it again" to create a sense that he is completely powerless and is actually being forced to continue. As dark as this song is the end of it shows a tiny hint of light s Billie says he is coming down from the high and reflects on the addiction finishing with the lines "I think I sold my soul/And sold my body/And I didn't get nothing/That was worth having."

Put this in your house
Put this on your heart
You need this in your lawn
You need this in your lungs
So never stop working
Thats how you can make it here
So put this on your mantle
But first put this in your mind
You need it to survive
You need it to survive

So I took it all and I took it all for granted
I swore that I knew what true love must be
But in the cold of night devils, devils they came and
I was left naked on the ground

I want it to stop
But its my addiction
ITS THE AMERICAN SCHEME

How many drugs can we take at once in this town
How much can we spend to feel safe and sound
All the while the war is on so we can get more so play along
Dont you dare stand up, just put the needle in
Aren't these extra bedrooms great places to put your kids
and wont the gate around the house help trap them in
And the other around the neighborhood can trap you to
Dont you dare speak up, just take one more hit
Just breathe this in
Then breathe it out
You have to take it all
And never say no

Maybe God will punish us in the end for our sin
For now I can't even remember where we've been
Just please please I dont want to do it again
I am begging
I JUST WANT TO LIVE

Words are drugs in my head
I got high in my heart
But I'm coming down
Now I'm coming down
I think I sold my soul
And sold my body
And I didn't get nothing
That was worth having

OOC: "American Scheme" is by far my favorite song. It's really well written and well done. This entire RP was amazing and it's been awesome to see RF grow into these rock giants. I did not know a lot about them at first but now I feel like I know them musically wise as if I were a fan and had been with them from the very beginning, so you've done an excellent job of showing their growth as if they were a real band. Great job on this :) And I like that you add your own personal touch so it's not just like every other album roleplay.

Right right welcome one welcome all to Max-Volume. I'm your host Max Pruitt and we've got a great conversation ahead of us with a band I know all of you want to hear from. They captivated us in 2013 with "Rome" and now they are back with a new LP, their seventh, I'm going to be talking with Reported Failure. The album is called "Lie In" and you can get it now. We're going to be talking about what that title means, we're going to be talking a bit about whats been going on in the world lately, we're going to talk about Reported Failure past present and future, and most of all we're going to talk about the music. Producer Avil Hartman is also here in the studio. Lets get to it.

Hi everyone I'm here with Billie Beckett, Matt Collins, Robert Edwards, and Vin Peters. You know them as Reported Failure. Avil Hartman is with us to. Good day everybody. Lets start with this: each of you go around and just in a few sentences say what you most want to say to the fans about the new album.

BB: Ok. Well I'm the frontman so I'll go first.

MC: putting us in our rightful place haha

RE: chuckle

BB: Yeah. This album really deals with a lot of unhappiness and unsettling material, and making it was a way to send those things away, to kind of clear my life of a lot of shit by writing songs about it. So I really hope that when you listen to it you first enjoy it and that you can connect with it to and come out to shows and connect with it there. Thats really all I can ask for. I'm really proud of the way we sound on this album too and I hope people appreciate the choices we made.

MC: I would like to say that I think this album rocks harder than anything else anyone has released since the days of bands like The Nimrods or Blood of Wecz easily. Hell, charts react as they may, this is going to be remembered in the rock world mark my words: its going to be legendary.

VP: I personally really liked making this one because I got to play a lot more guitar solos than for our last album. We all know deep down I wish we could be a full fledged guitar glam band every night but we dont want to be a cliche. But I think we all really stepped our musicianship up to the next level on Lie In. Playing these live is going to be awesome.

RE: Yeah to reiterate what Vin said, the way we are playing our instruments is so different on this album. I think the beats and riffs really pushed the songwriting and melodies rather than the other way around. Its like the way we think about making a song kind of was reconstructed. The way we play our instruments even became more dynamic and focused. There are some moments on this album where I hear it and just think "holy shit I'm actually in this band"

AH: As a producer I've been working with this band for many years, and I just think that on this album they chose to take a lot of different chances. Like mixing in four guitar sequences and a synth in to different parts or turning up bass more than any other rock band has been doing or the way we used lo-fi at different times, and how we just found the perfect way to make the guitars sing. We just focused on production and perfecting every little nuance.

You really said a lot there Mr. Collins. We are going to touch on a lot of what you said but first Billie Beckett did you think you were really going to leave the band last year when you posted on your blog a bit of a rant about how we are slaves to consumerism and about discrimination, and you said you were going to live a minimal life. Then you came back. Where are you in your journey? Do you stand by what you said last year?

BB: You're going straight for hardball, huh? Ok. Well yeah I do stand by what I said. I still think that a lot of problems in the world today are caused by vanity and discrimination and materialism. I've tried to change my life to be a better person so if thats what you mean by my journey then sure I'm still on it.

So you dont regret making the blog post? You came under a lot of flack for that.

BB: I didn't say that. In fact I do regret that particular blog post but not because I have changed. To be honest I was very emotional when I wrote that and I think my prose wasn't very good. Ha.

Did you plan on coming back to the band?

BB: I never really planned any of it. The point was to live completely off the grid and in the moment. I didn't really know what I was going to do day to day so I just didn't think about Reported Failure much because thats just not where my life was. I'm glad I did though.

Interesting. I think we will probably touch on this more later in the interview, but lets talk about this album. Where did you record this?

VP: So I used to own this place called Pacific Noise Studios in Santa Cruz but business wasn't so great so we actually tore all the equipment out and converted this old house in rural California in to a studio using that equipment. So thats where we recorded all of this album, out in the redwoods with just the five of us and some family and friends who popped in once in awhile.

Do you think that environment contributed to how this album sounds?

MC: I think staying in the same house where we were recording instead of living in a hotel and going to the studio during the day really let us sink in to the music like we haven't before.

BB: Yeah totally. We had a schedule each day of what we wanted to work on but we weren't limited by anything. So many nights Vin and I just played guitar for hours until 3 am sometimes just working on how we sounded together. We couldn't do that at a regular recording studio.

After you released Rome, the rock world basically said it was your masterpiece, so how did you go about following that album? Did you feel a lot of pressure to have another huge success?

VP: One of the first things we said was that we were going to make an album that wasn't like anything else we have done. We weren't going to worry about it sounding like Rome. We just wanted to go in to that house and see what we could make.

RE: Yeah I agree with that. I think we knew it would be a heavier album going in to the recording process. We had written and recorded demos for Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles, Old Man in the Sea, and King of the Jungle already so we knew it was going to have a harsher sound than most of our previous stuff.

BB: Yeah and another thing that ended up happening with the songwriting is there aren't that many choruses on this album. Its a lot more focused on the instruments and then I mostly deliver these verses. Like Tired Lover, that song Vin' riff is the chorus, on Take Arms the big power chords are like the chorus, American Scheme is all about how the melody grows, Downpour and Not the End don't have choruses. I think that's really because of what Robert was saying earlier about how we changed how we wrote these songs.

Great insights. I noticed the lack of choruses on a lot of the songs too. Do you think that will make this album less accessible to your fans especially the ones who really grew to love you because of your big choruses on hits like "Manufactured Radio" "Crumbling" or "Days Spent in the Dark"?

VP: I guess it could, sure. We ave written a lot of songs with big choruses in our career. We wanted to try something new. And we definitely started to do this on Rome with songs like "Land and Sea" and "Frosted Peaks" but this album takes it to the next level.

AH: As a producer I noticed this and we talked about how it would affect the album's reception with the lack of catchy choruses being the norm on this album, but they really wanted to try something new.

MC: Plus we don't give a shit. We're trying to push the boundaries of what a major rock album is supposed to sound like. Take it or leave it.

There are a lot of references to water on this album. In fact you have a lot of references to the sea in your lyrics. Could you explain what all these lyrics mean to you?

BB: There's an intensity in the ocean that I've always been drawn to. The first song on this album is all about how the natural world and water in particular has more force than the force I believe we as people can muster. Its about how against the sea, we are faced with our own mortality. But broader than that I've always had a fixation on the sea since I was a kid and the juxtaposition of solid ground and fluid water is what the song "Land and Sea" is all about. The ocean is often a source of inspiration for me when I write songs.

Yeah I think thats definitely evident in the themes of this record. I want to talk about one of the burning questions which is the lion on the artwork and the song "Lie In" but I'll start just by asking you to explain the title.

BB: Yeah that song is really all about ambiguities which is another big topic of the album. Its says "Lie In" but there is a picture of a lion which actually when said aloud sounds the same. So there are layers. It isn't as it initially appears.

MC: Totally. What he said. Haha. Also the actual title is really an invitation to the listener to just lie down and really become one with the music not just lying down and listening but literally lying in the music as if the listener is one with the music.

So what is the lion all about?

MC: Its about being free and not giving a fuck haha

RE: I think its really about the feeling of this album which is so vicious and animalistic. For me there is nothing rational about this album its just all about playing as loud as we could turning up the amps and beating the shit out of the drums

AH: With what Robert said, we left most of the production kind of messy because we wanted it to sound wild and untamed

BB: Yeah those are all totally part of it. I intended the lion to represent a way of living that is more wild and rugged and fierce than the kind of life that I think we are usually told is the right kind. Part of it is really about free love and that 1960s dream of rock and roll and the hippy culture and growing out your hair and trying not to be part of the corporate machine. I think the lion works as a great symbol for that.

The artwork is almost psychedelic it is so colorful. A couple songs particularly the title track have a bit of a psychedelic vibe too. Is that a sound you are trying to incorporate more in your music?

VP: I personally love a good trip in a song. Ya know when a song just feels other worldly like its a gateway to a different reality. Its definitely a sound we intentionally strived for on the title track and we have been working on making our live show so that is really turns people on and gets them out of their minds.

BB: We've been talking about how "everything is not as it seems" is another big theme of the album, and I think the psychedelic vibes are really part of that. Its supposed to be wild and out there and make people question a lot of the ways the world is.

You talk about growing older in "Tired Lover." You're all already 30 or about to start that fourth decade of life, so do you think your age is an asset or deficit for you as a rock band?

VP: That's a tough one haha. I guess I think its bad because there will always be a younger band to make us seem like old news and it takes extra effort to stay relevant, but its also good. I like growing older and I think we just keep pushing ourselves and gaining more experience.

MC: I still rock out like I'm 19 ya know. As long as I get that buzz I'm set. If the haters think we are too old fuck em.

BB: Haha yeah I think we have to worry about our health more than all the 20 year olds we see on tour. We have to treat our bodies well to get through twenty five song sets. But we are getting to the point where we have been doing this for a long time so we have so much experience which definitely is reflected in our live show.

RE: I think as we move forward as a band we are going to have to really think about how to not be a throwback. We want to get new fans each time we make an album and not just keep putting out music for the nostalgia of our longtime fans. But we also want to stay true to our sound and not make a bunch of arena punk albums with calculated hits. I think that gets harder the longer you've been a band especially because we have to try hard to make sure our new material isn't just another reiteration of the same stuff we were doing five years ago.

Watching the progression of RF from a pop-punk band in to what you are now which is quite often a band in a league of its own has been fascinating. I noticed on this album that your moving forward as a band was actually a lot of moving backwards. What kinds of bands did you draw inspiration from for this album? It seems to me that its a lot more 90's and 70's influences than more modern rock. Is that what you intended?

VP: Yea we definitely went back to the oldies not that we haven't done that before but we didn't listen to more contemporary bands like PANIC! or Infinite or even our peers like Riot! or Suburban Sunrise who we have been influenced by in the past. I definitely listened to guitarists like Slash, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page and mixed those sounds with the hardcore punk sound I have always had going on as a guitarist.

BB: Yeah we really recorded a lot of these in a musical vaccum without today's influences. I think we all grew to love groups like Led Zeppelin and Cream and Nirvana and Pearl Jam throughout our lives and together as a group over the past year. That totally influenced our sound.

I definitely hear Led Zeppelin on songs where you let a couple of instruments lead and then all of the sudden break in to a guitar jam. "Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles" has a very vintage tone to it. The guitar is kind of punk but Billie you sound a lot like Robert Plant in that song. Are you trying to bring back some of that seventies style hard rock?

MC: I think its really always been part of us, but this album we let it be front and center in our sound instead of trying to be a pop-punk band.

BB: Yeah I absolutely agree with what Matt said, but I definitely intentionally channeled some classic sounds and ideas from groups like Zeppelin and even singer songwriters like Jackson Browne and Bob Dylan who were a big influence on my lyrics. We wanted to make an album that sounded vintage as you said.

AH: I agree we all listened to that stuff when thinking about this album, but I think a lot of songs are really trailblazing where hard rock is going. Listening to songs like American Scheme, Lie In, Red Dream, and Not The End, I just think 'wow I've never heard a song quite like this.'

From what I can tell, the song "King of the Jungle" is really important to what you're trying to say with this album. Could you explain what that song means to you and how you wrote it?

BB: Sure. On that song I think we wanted to be really wild and chaotic. Its a song that is against order but also about a higher power, God. So its about the collapse of man-made order in the face of God if that makes sense. And we wanted to make that sound really chaotic and scary.

MC: I really love that song. Its so fast and we just blasted the bass on it. In some ways its the rawest song on this album because it really comes out of nowhere and when Billie starts roaring like he is the lion I just lose my shit every time I hear it. In the studio when we heard him record that part we all just looked at each other like "fucking shit. That was insane"

VP: It was one of the last songs that we wrote and recorded after we really knew what kind of album we wanted to make. Billie and I kind of pulled some lyrics we had together and we both wrote it in the studio.

I think that it is one of the songs where Billie, you sound a hell of a lot like Kurt Cobain just yelling at the microphone. Was that intentional?

BB: I love Nirvana and I've listened to them since I was a kid, so that influence has always been part of me. I think this album is just genuinely more angry than most of our other albums. So that anger resulted in a lot of yelling, but I didn't go in to the studio thinking 'ok I want to yell just like Kurt does on "Scentless Apprentice"' or something like that, but you're right it has a Nirvana vibe. I definitely hear it.

What are your favorite Nirvana songs?

BB: oh shit thats a tough one. Ummmm first ones that come to mind are Rape Me, Pennyroyal Tea, Lithium, and Come as You Are... But there are so many

MC: I'll be the basic bitch and say Smells Like Teen Spirit. Haha

VP: Damnit Matt, you're hurting our street cred. I've always loved You Know You're Right

BB: Oh crap... That one too

You've covered Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles and Soundgarden. Would you ever cover Nirvana? I think people might love that.

VP: Maybe. We like to do covers, but we would have to find the right song. One we wont totally fuck up

RE: We did the Beatles and people seemed to like it... I think we could try a Nirvana song.

Lets move right along and talk about the next song "Red Dream" The lyrics in the chorus are "Come tie-dye me (I need you)/Come feed me your ink (and lie in me)/Come bleed on me I need to sink/Much deeper in to this red sleep" could you explain what these mean?

MC: I think its about becoming one with each other thats as a band and an audience. I do the backing vocals and I whisper "and lie in me" which references the title and as I said the title is about becoming one with the piece of music. So its about a transmission of feeling that happens at a concert.

BB: Matt is totally on point. We wrote this while really being on the high of our Rome World Tour last year and how a show can seem like a dream. I chose to describe it with the color red because I think red is a very expressive and symbolic color that says a lot about what punk rock is. And as the singer when I sing and hear thousands of people sing my lyrics back so me its amazing. So when I sing "feed me your ink" its about how I love to feel the emotion of the crowd being thrown at me and then how it lets me sink further in to this glorious dream.

Great, awesome insight. Its a really catchy song and the production is quite dense you've got huge bass and so many guitars. Was it challenging to record this song?

VP: There's a lot of dynamics in this one and it did take a good chunk of time. I think its one of my favorite songs to play just because of all the pedals I get to use and different ways I get to play my guitar in one song.

AH: Getting the master cut for this song was a challenge because there is so much going on, but we managed to get Billie's vocals to really shine and let a lot of the guitars sing. Parts are a bit muddy. A lot of this album had very minimal mixing and tweaking in post-production, but this song has a lot of tricks to make it sound as clear as it does.

It sounds like this is one of the songs you're most proud of. Will we see it as the next single?

RE: I dont think we've decided

BB: Yeah maybe, but we really dont know. We are talking with Studio 60 about what to do for the next single from this record.

Great. Well we are halfway there. We are going to take a break now but be sure to check back in later and we will talk more about the second half of "Lie In" and the future of Reported Failure.

Edited by user 06 May 2015 08:13:16(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

OOC: Thank you very much :) I've been inconsistent in the past with sticking around but I don't plan on disappearing anytime soon. Thanks again and for taking the time to always read my RPs.

erich: so after that album that plucks the hairs right from zeus' taint and that interview...who else has replaced their ham fists with actual hams? i know i did. times are tough,so i didnt use real ham.i used that denmarkian ham in a tin stuff.