12 Stones is an interesting band. In a field of alternative rock bands that include the likes of Memento, 3rd Strike, Evanescence, etc. who often decry the religious messages in music, 12 Stones integrates it complete into their music. Their first CD, self-titled 12 Stones sold a fairly impressive 300,000 copies in two years and had a few very strong hits. Broken and The Way I Feel touched alot of people with their message of hope and greater understanding. I’ll be honest, I was quite touched by those two songs and it inspired my interest in 12 Stones.
Today, I found out that they had realized a new album called Potter’s field. As lead singer Paul McCoy states himself,
“This is a bigger record all the way around. We wrote it the way we wanted it to be put out. Alot of the song’s dont necessarily sound like 12 Stones songs; people might say: ‘Thats not the 12 stones we know.’ Maybe not, but its the 12 Stones you’re about to know.”
He’s right, it’s
not the 12 Stones we’ve heard before. It has none of the sound that their older album revelled in. It has a more airy sound, a much fuller, produced sound. My only criticism of their deput album was that it sounded somewhat empty, dead, and alot of that had to deal with production issues. This one has a much fuller sound. Cranking it on the way home from Best Buy I was surrounding by a staggering sound stage.
As I listened though, I couldn’t help but ask myself: “Am I listening to Finger Eleven?” The resemblences are almost uncany. The production seems almost uncanny. Even the way they added an etheral feel to to McCoy’s voice is right out of Finger Eleven’s guidebook. However, Potter’s field does have one nice advantage: a great guitar player.
Eric Weaver does most of the guitar duties and if you listened to Broken or The Way I Feel you know he has talent. His riffs are indepth and extremely well done. They increased the warmth of his guitar work this time around, not quite as bright as previously. Its a sound that appealed to me. In songs like 3 Way Loser (track #8) and Far Away (track #3) he’s allowed to let loose a tad, but no where near as far as in their first release. That bothers me, they’re waisting his talent.
There’s some good things in Potter’s field, and alot of bad things. The over-produced sound, the complete change in style and tone, the lack of really establishing yourself, all of it screams of a sophmoric record. I guess when I bought it I was expecting the 12 Stones of old, the good 12 Stones. Now, I’m not so sure. It is no where near as good as Breaking Benjamins 2nd album, or even Flaw’s. Both of those took the bands in new directions but both sounded good. Potter’s field doesn’t have that, really. Oh, it has some good songs, like Stay (track #9) and Waiting for Yesterday (track #10) but the rest are pretty weak.
Overall, if I were to give it a rating I’d say a 3 out of 5. If I were in a good mood. If I was in a bad…well, let’s just stick with the 3. If you do feel the desire to pickup the album, its $7.00 at Best Buy right now which isn’t a bad deal and definitely worth the price.
side note: A potter’s field is where they burry the Jon Does, people who have no family or relations and cannot be placed anywhere else. The true “lost souls.”
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I just realized something quite ironic. Harry Potter, the fantasy series for kids that is truely a best seller, showcases some perfect examples for network security. In the book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone,” Harry and his friends must make it through multiple stages of obstacles to reach the objective, the “Sorcerers Stone.” Each obstacle is a puzzle of sorts, with a different type of skill set and answer set required.
This is actually almost the ideal firewall setup at a network perimiter. Multiple systems that must be bypased, each requiring a different type of authentication or permissions. It throws “ease of use” out the window but makes the cost to retrieve the item or information astronomical. It doesn’t scale lineally. It scales logarithmically. Because the chance of one person having the skills and knowledge to defeat all stages is incredibly rare. Oh, its doable, but generally in isolation and not in realistic settings.
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Internet friends make up an interesting social sphere. Most relationships seem to have lasted for a long time, generating lasting impressions of the people within that can be completely different from their real world selves. The few internet friends that I’ve met in real life were nothing like what I expected. They weren’t at all like the impression I had constructed from numerous late night discussions, simple one-liners in emails, or even weblog posts with some of the newer friends.
Does that mean I was disappointed? Not really, sometimes, the people are far superior to the impression that I had imprinted upon them. Sometimes, it’s comparable, and in a very few instances, its worse. One thing I have noticed is that in general, internet impressions seem to cast a greater air towards “maturity.” The people always seem more mature, developed, interested, and online. When they enter a real world state, suddenly, they are not.
Is it because the Internet medium is so good at allowing us to be the person we want to be, and not the person we are? Or is it that text just robs us of the subtle little inflections that would pervade our speech and actions, showing our true state of mind?
I’d like to think it’s a combination of both rather. I know the person I am online is more like the state of self I wish to be, however, it doesn’t quite match up with my real world self. Online, I am far more outgoing. Far more likely to reach out and engage the other person and much more likely to share parts of myself that I don’t even share with close, personal friends of many years.
So maybe it’s more the hidden nature of the internet that makes us who we are. The ability to hide behind an insensitive context gives us the will to be who we want (or don’t want) to be in real life.
The reason I bring this all up, which I intend to expand upon later, is because for the first time since we met in a chat room, Sam and I talked in real life. I think both of us were surprised by the other. The obvious surprises would be tone, his voice was higher than I had expected and my voice was much lower than he had expected.
The second surprise would also be in the way we talked. Online, we’re both much more scripted though I think that phase was more from feeling out the borders. On the phone, it was a much more fluid conversation. Hmmm. I wonder what his take will be.
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