Today is the Day - Today Is the Day (1996)Release ID: 41736
Today is another day of listening to and reviewing a Today is the Day album, in an attempt to roll the dice on finding what I might enjoy from this band. Thanks Ben for adding their self-titled 3rd album that now qualifies for the site! So let's dig in to see what it has to offer...
Despite the original CD being out of print for so many years, Today is the Day's 3rd album is a significant one. It's their first album to be self-produced in founding guitarist Steve Austin's recording studio Austin Enterprise. The bassist is out, but the band instead added a keyboardist to add a more electronic vibe. With that said, the album is known as the band's entryway into the metal sound that would develop in later albums. You know how much I like these transition "missing link" kind of albums!
Right from the start, the cacophonic "Kai Piranha" begins the heaviness as thick as a humid swamp. The vocals have that strange unsettling mood alternation between screams and cleans. "Marked" sounds less vague and more threatening. The excruciatingly amazing puncher "Bugs Death March" is more twisted, bringing up horrifying imagery of bugs crawling all over your skin like in one of those video games when you end up in a swarm-infested part of a cavern, helped out by the keyboard/vocal domination alongside some samples and noises. A spooky favorite! It then leads to a pure acoustic interlude, "A Man of Science".
"Realization" is another experimental highlight, and I'm stunned that I've evolved from the melodic metalcore of All That Remains to this band's sound. "Black Iron Prison" is a soft eerie interlude that reminds me of some of the interludes The Dillinger Escape Plan would make. "Mountain People" has a great amount of progressive experimentation similar instrumentally to Voivod and early Protest the Hero. "Ripped Off" continues the music expansion with more of the keyboards and screaming/singing vocal alternation.
"The Tragedy" is a just drum interlude. Beware of "She is the Fear of Death" if you can't handle the creepy insanity of weird falsetto gasps and strange explicit lyrics. But I can understand that kind of nature, and consider that track another gem. "I Love My Woman" is a funny 30-second serenade interlude. "Dot Matrix" is one last sludgecore track.
Indeed, Today is the Day's self-titled 3rd album begins the band's transition to metal, but I can't describe exactly its disturbing power. Austin and co. produced a noise-ridden classic, yet sometimes you can get lost in the dense twists. It's almost like they've made intentional and unintentional jams for this malevolent atmosphere. Still this offering helped fans of the band and sound appreciate them more, me being one of them 27 years after release. But the entryway would be opened further by the Morning Star....
Favorites: "Bugs Death March", "Realization", "Black Iron Prison", "Mountain People", "Ripped Off", "She is the Fear of Death"
