MUSIC REVIEW: Bilmuri

 (W a V E - Bilmuri)

It's probably been said before -- most likely by me -- that I am a massive snob when it comes to music. I lay this proudly at the feet of my parents and my aunt. They made sure that I grew up with a wide range of music at my disposal. The gamut was run between the titans of classical music -- Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Albioni, etc. -- to pretty much anything classic rock -- Pink Floyd, CSNY, CCR, The Eagles, etc. -- to just about everything else except rap and opera. 

At the risk of making me sound even older than I actually am, this was all music back when music was GOOD, back when you had to BE GOOD in order to get somewhere. People had to like you specifically for your music. Today, anyone can record something in their bedroom with crap production values, throw it up on YouTube, and become a star for...who knows what reason.

I like music for a lot of different reasons but I've noticed a few similarities cropping up with those bands that I just cannot get out of my head:

- They all have very complex sonic layering. There are things happening on the high end, in the middle, in the bassline, the percussion, all of it is bringing something unique to the table while working flawlessly with everything else. Complexity. Forethought. Not just NOISE.

- They all demonstrate strong, precise, technical, creative use of their instruments.

- Their vocals are tight, in tune, and they display a strong use of melody and harmony.

- I can turn them all up loud and they only get better.

- They make me FEEL something. I don't just listen, I'm engaged with it at some level.

Long story long, I don't listen to much new music because a great deal of the pop that comes out these days is formulaic, safe, repetitive, and just...not engaging to me. It's not creative. Yes, I know that there are some good things that have come out since 1985 but I'm also cranky and stubborn and don't really go out of my way to hunt that stuff down.

Thankfully, I have nieces and nephews. They were brought up with the same music that I was but they've also got their fingers on the pulse of new things as well and, occasionally, they throw things over the wall at me that they think might make it past my moat of pure snobbery.

This brings us to the subject of today's review, a man named Johnny Franck, otherwise known as Bilmuri.

...Yes. It's pronounced exactly the way you think it is. Yes, I'm pretty sure it was deliberate.

If you look into Johnny Franck's history, the man has been everywhere and done most of that at very, very high volume. If you -keep- looking at Johnny Franck's history, you'll see that a lot of it has been sunk into the Metalcore genre which is dominated by ... well, a lot of screaming. 

"Steve," you say, "I know you.  You're not into Screamo music." And you'd be right. I'm not.  That does sort of beg the question about why we're here talking about this guy.

Somewhere along the line, Johnny Franck figured out how to write what I might call a Pop song, except there's SO MUCH MORE going on inside of the music that he's cranking out under the Bilmuri moniker. Everything about what he's produced in the last few years almost always has some kind of 'but' attached to it:

- Some of his music is loaded with clean Telecaster riffs and slide or pedal steel guitar parts that are pure country but he's so very NOT country.

- Some of his music is loaded with '80s sounding synth samples but he's very, VERY not an '80s tribute style artist.

- Some of his music has '70s Saxophone solos but those solos are ... yeah. They're wildly out of place and yet the best part of pretty much every song they're in. I have no idea how that works.

- Some of his music has pretty serious EDM rhythm and bass but his work isn't something you'd call EDM.

- Maybe most of all, Bilmuri cannot resists breaking out into drop-tuning and letting someone scream into the microphone, and his percussionist is pulling his drumming DIRECTLY from the harder side of metal, but you certainly wouldn't call his works Metalcore.

It's tempting to think of Bilmuri as someone who creates pop music. Lord knows he has any number of tracks to his name that are home to absolutely insidious pop hooks in their refrains. Take a moment and listen to his music and you will be rapidly disabused of that notion. Take one of his newer tracks, 'FLOURIDEINTHEHARDSELTZERWATER':

That song is many things. 'Formulaic Pop' is not one of them. For God's sake, there's a sound-bite from the Macho Man himself in the middle of it! No, this is absolutely not pop.  I'm honestly not sure what to call it...

...Except that's not true. I know exactly what to call it: Enjoyable.

After a brief exposure to this artist at low volume on the way home from a family visit, I spent the next 48 hours diving through almost every part of his body of work. I was nodding my head, tapping my feet, and smiling ear to ear pretty much the entire time.  

And yes, I know that the screaming vocals might be a turn-off for some of you. I'm still not a huge fan of them myself. I'm not suddenly a convert to that after listening to Bilmuri's music pretty much non-stop over the last month or so. The screaming is a rather small part of the whole and the rest of it is so, so very worth it. There's also the fact that Bilmuri has quite a few songs without any screaming at all in them. Here are just a few:

- ACOWBOYSHEAVYLOAD
- ADECENTCUPOFCOFFEE
- W a V E
- Good Things Fall Apart
- KEEPINITBEEFY
- I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)

If you're looking for something new that isn't bound to a particular genre but is still startlingly good, you could do worse than diving through his discography. My nephew summed it up pretty well for me when he said, "His music just makes me feel good."

Indeed, sir.