{"id":14942,"date":"2018-07-28T05:30:45","date_gmt":"2018-07-28T09:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14942"},"modified":"2018-07-27T12:04:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T16:04:20","slug":"album-review-the-league-of-one-dispatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/28\/album-review-the-league-of-one-dispatch\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The League of One \u2013 Dispatch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14943\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/league_of_one.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/league_of_one.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/league_of_one-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/league_of_one-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Drawing from \u201870s sludge metal (Black Sabbath) \u201880\u2019s hair bands (pick any one; they\u2019re pretty well interchangeable) and modern-day speed metal, The League of one makes the kind of hard rock that \u2013 whether you like it or not \u2013 has largely gone out of fashion these days.<\/p>\n<p>And that shift in popular taste is unfortunate. The songs on <i>Dispatch<\/i> are sold riff rockers. Singer and guitarist Will Maeder has a vocal style that reminds one a bit of Blue <em>\u00d6<\/em>yster Cult\u2019s Erc Bloom. The band\u2019s taut riffage sticks close to standard-issue melodic metal, but ever so often the songs (like the opening track \u201cWax Museum\u201d flash a break reminiscent of the twisting, virtuosic prog-metal of Deadwing-era Porcupine Tree.<\/p>\n<p>And that prog-metal sensibility surfaces often on <i>Dispatch<\/i>. \u201cPlastic Crackhead\u201d alternates between stoner vibe and menacing, punishing (in a good way!) riffing. The group avoids the arena-rock production aesthetic, instead delivering its songs in a close-up, intimate fashion that doesn\u2019t cloak the vocals and instrumentation in blemish-hiding effects. And there\u2019s nothing to hide; these guys can play stoner rock one minute, and then fire on all cylinders with blazing solos the next. Drummer Billy Grant and bassist \u201cThe Rev\u201d shift gears effortlessly between styles, and The League of One has enough nuance \u2013 a rare quality in this particular musical territory \u2013 to expertly explore more than one musical idea within the confines of its relatively compact songs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drawing from \u201870s sludge metal (Black Sabbath) \u201880\u2019s hair bands (pick any one; they\u2019re pretty well interchangeable) and modern-day speed metal, The League of one makes the kind of hard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,49,62,65],"tags":[3511],"class_list":["post-14942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metal","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-the-league-of-one","cat-46-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14944,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14942\/revisions\/14944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}