It is very different and poppy compared to previous stuff for sure. I like it in the context of the song, even though overall I prefer Tool's prog/metal melding.

I'm not a Maynard whisperer / expert, but my guess is that there are 2 motivations for the sound of this song/album compared to other stuff.

1) Although Maynard is the vocalist for Tool, APC, and Puscifer (which I haven't listened to much), he kinda wants to keep all those projects distinct. Tool is more dark and heavy, APC is a bit more rock, and Puscifer trending towards some electronic stuff. But that kinda oversells this, because mostly he is putting vocals down onto musical tracks that the members of those bands have already recorded without much or any input from him...

2) From my interpretation of the song itself, he's being (mildly) critical about getting caught up in triviality of celebrity gossip and nightly news instead of paying attention to stuff closer to home. While simultaneously accepting that we all do that, and that sometimes it takes the death of a far-off idol from our adolescence that we'll never meet in person to get us to consider our own mortality.


So the poppy sound with that dark edge right around the corner really fits -- at least to me.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm not the kind of man
Who tends to socialize
I seem to lean on
Old familiar ways
And I ain't no fool for love songs
That whisper in my ears
Still crazy after all these years
Oh still crazy after all these years

The Hummingbird Whisperer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP_3mAJpZVE

Godsmack is how the wind feels
On the face of Mike Winfield
On his way home from the bar where he works
Nights - the worst nights, don't nobody tip right
And between the marriage offers and the fist fights
And if another mother fucker touch his wrist trying to pull him in to whisper
He ain't making it to midnight
Don't they know he got a lighter in his pocket
A matchbook in his sock and a block full of charred skeletons closeted begging to get out
He paused cause he's scared of airing out the thoughts
He can taste it in his mouth the sulfur and bitter carbon
Hearing all the burning bodies shout but no
That was a full lifetime ago and nobody ever has to know
He has never told well except Ronald
But that don't count he was sweet and exactly what he needed him to be at the time
Wine and candlelight and nice texts at lunchtime
Why had he not called Ron back
Guess there just wasn't a spark, ha!
No, no, musn't joke about these things
Wouldn't want to disappoint Doc Clark
So many hours on the couch
So many buried memories that take so many tears to get them out
Water hadn't never been a friend
Hold up - where had he seen that car before
Blue Acura dent on the left rear fender
Back again the sense of
Deja Vu
Strange things you
Never shake when you wake up in recovery
But suddenly noticing ash is covering his head cause it's raining from the sky
Dials home on his cell phone and gets no reply
What the fuck?
Where is the babysitter that he overpays
Body takes over and brain becomes disengaged
Michael is running his house is three blocks away
Adrenaline compensating for change in age
Since the last time that he ran it god dammit
Mike knows he gotta get home fast as he can
Looks up in the sky, glow's familiar
Knows those families died with similar
Awnings and on and on he keeps going
Hits the corner just as he hears the explosion
Screams come from the house, "Did you get them out?"
Mike asking the crowd that has gathered 'round
Tears running down his face
There's that familiar taste
He wishes it would take him to another place
Son and his baby girl in his home and he can't believe that it's gone in a cloud of smoke
And he's choking and running forward and hoping against hope that he might find them alive and well
When he knows the results too well and he knows that fooled himself
And he keeps walking towards the house rather what house is still left
No intention of stopping letting the smoke take his breath
Some strong arm rocks him aside Mike falls to the ground and cries
Why won't you just let me die
Why won't you just let me die

That's pretty sick *promote

Here's one for your collection:
http://www.11alive.com/news/investigations/the-drug-whisperer/437061710

Your video, Dr. Sebastian L. v. Gorka, Trump Whisperer | Full Frontal, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Before he gave the secret, I went back and got it the second time. Mind blowing? Eh.
It's similar to when you listen to so-called EVP (electric voice phenomenon, or ghost whispers). You hear it the first time, and you're like... "so what? That was some random noise." Then someone tells you what you're supposed to hear (listen it's saying "Get out now!" wooo creepy!), and after that you can't NOT hear that.

ah,the days of being in a relationship with a woman,who loved painkilllers with her jug wine.

who would wake me up in the dead of the night,using the super heated metal tops of a bic lighter on the bottom of my feet (those are called "smileys" for those who do not know) to scream at me about some girl who had the audacity to look my way at target,because 3:30am is the time to find out if i am having sexual thoughts about random women.

or an earlier girlfriend whose father was a prominent artist in the country and was holding a weekend jazz festival.i had a customer who had cerebal palsy,and one leg had been amputated,whose boyfriend had just broke up with her and she was a wreck.

so i had this bright idea! why doesn't this poor emotional wreck of a woman come to the jazz festival of my girlfriends dad? that will get her mind off things right?

but,having a second person accompany made me a little late.so when i finally showed up,my girlfriend was already half in the bag,and mad.i tried to explain and introduce her to mary,the heartbroken girl.

and my girlfriend broke my nose with a bottle of michelob.i do not think she cared that mary was heart broken,and an utter wreck in need of human company.i could be wrong,this is just a guess,but the bleeding from my broken nose may have been a strong indicator.

or how about the time i was counseling a long time friend,who had pulled a midnight move out to escape a man who had basically had her trapped in a spare room,chaining her to the wall.that man had gone as far as severing her achilles tendons,after her first attempt to escape,and this woman suffered from a severe case of PTSD.

now she did form an almost childlike bond to me.maybe because i had offered her the first taste of true compassion,and offered her safety and comfort,and allowed her to talk the poison and bile out that had been building inside her for over three years.

but her attachment to me,which was to be expected,was not viewed favorably by my girlfriend.i spent a lot of time and attention in drawing this broken and damaged young woman to feel safe,and to begin to feel human again(which infuriated my girlfriend).my patio was always filled with friends,artists and people of interest,and i did my best to bring a normalcy to this young womans life in order to help her acclimate,and to feel human again.

and my girlfriend would come home,get drunk,and start to whisper the most vile.and disgusting things..not about this young woman,but about me.

which,of course,if you understand the mentality of an abuse victim.especially one who had suffered such as she had.any criticism,or perceived threat to the person who had (in their mind) saved them,will create incredible anger and anxiety.

so because of my girlfriends irrational jealousy of this woman,and in her drunken selfishness,she went out of her way to make this woman feel as uncomfortable,and as unsafe (the exact opposite of what i was trying to do).so much so that the young woman...who didn't want to be a burden,or affect my life in a negative way...left my home,and wrote me she would never come back,because she loved me and didnt want to cause problems.

two weeks later she was found dead in motel room.over dose of piankiller and xanax...and wrists slashed to ribbons.

or how about the time one of my girlfriends broke three of my ribs,because i was being kind to a waitress?

or the time another girlfriend stabbed me,because while she was unhappy with our relationship,she could not abide me talking to anyone who owned a vagina.in this case a fellow artist i was collaborating with,and who happened to be not only an amazing human being but beautiful as well.

or that one time,when i broke up with a girl,because it simply was not working out and she repeatedly rammed her ford fairmont station wagon into my brand new firebird?

oh..the stories i can tell about all my wonderful relationships,and the women i have shared portions of my life with.i could write a book...

and then i watch this video,and i am overcome with an urge to drive cross country to the creators home,walk inside,grab him by the ankles and crag him outsides....and beat him senseless.

because he is coming from a false premise.
he is implying the that the benefits of relationships outweigh he selective memory our brains create when reliving our moments of singlehood.

when the reality is this:as long as you have friends,who love and accept you for who you are,you are never actually single.you are surrounded and loved by an extended family.

i do not need a girlfriend.
i do not want a girlfriend.
i am not interested in getting married.
and as i have revealed here,i would prefer some memories to remain buried under the much happier and adoring memories of my actual friends who put up with my eccentricities,and my overall oddness,rather than deal with a woman who is smitten with the ideas fed to them by institutions,and periodicals such as comsopolitian and vogue.

though,ironically,i have two ex girlfriends living in my home as i write this.
one is a former porn star,and current stripper who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia,and is a recovering addict.

while the other i had to go do a midnight rescue from a place where she was renting a room,but the house was junkie house,and she is a recovering addict as well (and they also kept stealing everything from her).she has bought a house,but it needs work and that work is taking fooooooorever.

and BOTH of these women still harbor some residual feelings towards me.even though i have been quite clear,open and honest that i have ZERO interest in rekindling anything,with either of them,but that hasn't stopped them from being all catty with each other,and causing drama,and complaining about the smallest,tiniest and most ridiculous of things to bitch about.

at first i tried to play referee.
i did my best to help everyone get along,until i realized they both had no interest in getting along.they wanted to outdo the other in order to get my attention.

which is just.....dumb..but anyways,my new way of handling their insipid complaints is always this response:i don't care.

and it seems to work beautifully.

so there you have my story,or at least part of it.
and i have to say...this guy is kinda full of shit.

for those of you happily married,with a great partner,i salute you.good for you,and i mean that.

but for me?
no thanks.i am good.

Science is the search for truth, not god.
If you are conflating knowledge of the truth with closeness to god, I won't argue.
The more scientific discoveries that are made, the more I see the lack of a need for a "God(s)" to explain it all.

As I see it, God lives in the shadows of ignorance, whispering explanations of the unknown to those that can't accept the 'answers' are unknown, and every time the light of knowledge is directed into those shadows, we see there's nothing there but our imagination and 'God' recedes farther into the dark crevasses.

I like how Tom Wait's whisper sounds like a purring tiger.

Sounds like an exercising in rearranging the furniture on the Titanic to me.

In a world where discrimination and separatism is qualitatively and quantitatively on the rise, people in charge must be ecstatic that they can appease people without having to do anything meaningful that might piss off the extremists on the right, or "shareholders". And people are so used to being told that change is only possible through incremental adjustments that they'll eat it up like candy and think this is progress.

"People people people, if you're going to call someone a filthy tranny and throw fast food at xem on public transport, at least use the proper pronoun when you verbally abuse xem."

When there's a hole in the boat and you're taking on water, the least of your concerns should be about what language you use to describe the in-rushing water or shape of the hole, nor arguing over the colour of the material you use to repair it.

I'm sure some people will see this as a victory. Until next time they apply for a job and not get hired due to transphobia. And the manager of the company, with a gleam in their eye, begins the rejection letter with 'Dear bun/bunself', then sniggers to themselves and says "fucking trannies."

What I'm trying to say was summed nicely in a tweet i saw the other day:
ALTRIGHT/NEO NAZI: your all going to the gas chambers!!!
NEOLIBERAL: you're*

If this is the extent of what activism is able to achieve, i should say that the establishment/elite have won by pacifying and declawing the protesters. It's no longer about breaking the shackles of oppression. We can't go around breaking shackles everywhere - think of the effect on the economy? And what about people getting hit by shrapnel? No, instead the LGBTQ community will be given multi coloured chains, the black community will be given slightly longer chains, and we'll pad the shackles with silk so that everyone is much more comfortable. Don't complain about the concept of being chained, instead complain that your chain is not as nice as the next guy's chain.

It's as though the great struggle of protest and civil disobedience has been taken over by the liberal intelligentsia, and the worst kind of discrimination faced by a 20 year old middle-class university student with rainbow coloured dreadlocks and a nose piercing is the letter they receive about their student loan that begins "dear sir/madam". So they go out and march about it and think they've made progress when they get their own pronoun. In their life, in their experiences, they are treated equally in other respects, so they think they ARE fighting inequality.

But for the working class male or female transsexual who gets filthy looks and a seat isolated by themselves on public transport, to travel to their entry level job where they've been skipped over for promotion for not looking the part, or getting the right level of respect from the trans-phobic staff, getting snide whispered comments from customers about the size of their hands, getting abuse yelled at them as they travel to have a night out at the ONLY trans-friendly bar within a 20 mile radius....... I get the feeling that receiving a letter with the correct pronoun isn't exactly going to change their fucking lives.

To remove a weed, you go for the roots. Some wanker calling you him/her when you prefer bun/bunself is not the root of this problem. The problem is that they are trans-phobic, not the language - which is just the tool they use to discriminate against you. To change the language and think that you've won is a bit like redefining room temperature and claiming you've warmed everybody by a few degrees.

If you march for equal rights, fair pay, fair treatment then people are going to see that and join your protest because they also want those things. Those things will solve the problems faced by the trans community, feminists, masculinists, minorities alike! And through common goals and by supporting each other en masse for simple, unified goals like EQUALITY, progress will be made, change will happen. It is a concept called solidarity and seems to be going out of fashion, but our grandparents knew.

The objective for the establishment is to drive a wedge between groups of people so that their demands are more manageable, and they can be turned on each other. Feminists, masculinists, LGBT, everyone... can't you see how better off you'd be marching together for common values that lie at the core of what every human wants?

Wall of text, sorry... and I know it looks like i'm being insensitive. So congratulations, genuinely, for getting someone to use your preferred pronoun if that makes you feel better. But whilst people have been fighting tooth and nail to get their own pronoun (in civilised settings only), we've suffered huge leaps backwards in freedom and tolerance behind their backs whilst they were bent over intently concentrating on the finer detail of what their ideal equality looks like.

Your video, Dog Whisperer, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 98 Badge!

Settle the fuck down there Social Justice Warrior...I said nothing personal to you so cool your jets. I am honestly getting tired of taking the sane, reasonable route in everything I do. I just got off facebook responding to one of those "233 blacks, 411 whites" posts that "show" cops don't kill more blacks...and I get flak for not defending cops. I come here, point out that Marah and his minions are full of shit on one point, and I get flak...fuck both polar sides.

With that said let us get into the meat of your tantrum. I never even implied, hinted, suggested or whispered that many police actions are somehow mitigated or diminished because things are better. In fact, that whole distraction you ranted on is irrelevant to the whole meaning of my post. What the point was is this--THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO INCENTIVE FOR A SIDE TO BECOME A BETTER GROUP WHEN THE OTHER SIDE NEVER ACKOWLEGES PROGRESS. This is why Democratic and Republican lawmakers are so polarized. Why cops and blacks are so polarized. Why religions are so polarized.

I mean if we talked to our children like we talk about this, we would seem pretty fucking stupid. "Hey Timmy! I know you improved your D to a C+, but fuck you! That's not good enough you shit head. You miswell be an F student in this house!" Yeah, see how little Timmy might not come around to his dad's way of thinking? I swear, you mention some positivity and people flip the fuck out...like we are selling out to the bad cops or some stupid shit. And this is exactly what Marah's point was and is. His words were clear---NO PROGRESS. (You could argue that he meant only that there has been no progress in the thin blue line but then you would have to be a really belligerent asshole who takes words out of context to fit their meaning...)

Next, you mention all the tax dollars our police force gets...BWAHAHAAHA! Holy fuck, and I am sure the education system is overflowing with money too! Just because the numbers are large doesn't mean the actual tax dollars are significant nor does it mean the money flows to the actual police either. Now this does bring up your very serious observation that I find worrisome as well...the militarization of police...unfortunately our politicians cut sweet deals with companies that make war toys, just like in the military, and basically give away huge percentages of the police "budget." This drastically reduces the actual money police have to do their jobs while lining the politicians' pockets with contributions later.

As far as the shooting one unarmed person per week comment you made that should give YOU some perspective of how utterly stupid the side you are on is. 52 deaths a year in this manner (Say if your hyperbolic statement was actually right instead of being smartass.) 39 thousand deaths happen as a result of car accidents. Do I minimize the deaths? No. Do I put them in perspective? Of course.

I personally think that the no snitch code to crimes, whether on the street or in the force, should be a crime. Nowhere should be safe, period.

Upvote for "God's little whisper of a vagina"

*whispers* big chocolate salty balls *wink*