A few weeks ago I saw Stone Sour at the House of Blues. They're touring to promote their "House of Gold & Bones" albums, and leading up to the show I was listening to both a lot. The albums, while strong musical releases, also tell a cool, twisted story.
When part 1 was announced I was already going to get it
anyway, because I loved their previous two albums. Then I heard that
it was going to be the first of a two part concept album, with Corey
Taylor, the band's singer, describing it as Pink Floyd's “The Wall”
meeting Alice in Chains' “Dirt” on steroids. Pretty fucking big
shoes to fill, but okay. That could be awesome. Sold!
If you
dunno, a concept album is an album that tells a story, with each song
serving as a musical kind of chapter. Sound awful? Yep
(“Thank you very much Mr. Roboto”). But when a band does it right (“The Wall”, “Dark Side of the Moon”, maybe something
non-Pink Floyd I can't think of, etc.), it's really right. Before the
album was released, Taylor described the story as being about a man
who has to make a decision about his life.
“I
would rather be good than bad, you know?” he said. “But I'm also
realistic enough to know that I have that potential in me to be both.
So, it's really the balance that it comes down to. I'm not a shiny
happy person. I'm an asshole when I want to be...you can be positive
and still have an attitude...This is about reality. This is about
being a decent human being and having the guts to back it up. And
that's kind of what the story is about, it's about... Can you be that
person? Or are you just going to make the same mistakes in your life
and spin your wheels in the ethereal mud, so to speak?”
That
sounded pretty damn good. Part 1 came out and I bought it right away.
With the CD (why am I still buying CD's? When people go into Newbury Comics, they're buying coffee mugs
with “Keep Calm and [Ironic-Phrase Here] On” printed on them, not CDs! I'm...I'm a dinosaur.), a short story copy of
the album's plot was included.
The main
character, the Human, slowly awakens in a Dali-esque burnout
landscape where the sky is sunshiny, but also includes pockets of
gray winter, thunderstorm purple, aurora green on the horizon, and
others. Laying in a field of grass that feels like AstroTurf, he
rises and not knowing where the hell he is, sets off on a road that
feels rubbery and sinks when he steps on it. Trippy! So begins a tale
in which he's chased by lunatic psychopaths called the Numbers,
confronted by a twisted doppelganger of himself, meets a Gandalf/Yoda
sage named after Sam Peckinpah, and is told that he is key to a major
event called the Conflagration, set to begin soon. Oh, and to go
home, he has to find (...wait for it!...) the House of Gold & Bones.
Part 2 came out a few months later, and
begins with a flashback. Before the story begins, The Human believes that there is too much of life to live NOW, and he's burning through every night and day. One night, during a party
at his place, he hears screams
coming from the direction of the nearby lake. He tries to rally his
friends, but they're all too fucked up to respond. He runs off alone and finds his neighbors' daughter in the water, screaming for
her life. He dives in after her, but realizes he's really fucked up, too. He reaches
her and pulls her on his back. People have arrived by now, but he's blacking out. He manages to push the girl toward an oncoming swimmer but he goes under. When he awakens next, he's in the strange world.
Through part 2 we find out why some people are chasing him and some are helping him, why he's in this place, what being in a nightmare landscape has to do with choosing to become a better person, and what choice he ultimately has to make. Or not make. And that's the point. I'll leave it at that. “House of Gold & Bones” parts 1 and 2 are great rock records,
so I recommend them to everyone I know anyway, but the story is great. Now go read it/listen to it so I can hear myself talk about it to you some more.
