Cruel Melody

Cruel Melody
Studio album by Black Light Burns
Released	June 5, 2007
Recorded	2005-2006
Genre	Industrial rock, alternative metal, avant-garde metal
Length	62:33
Label	I AM: WOLFPACK
Producer	Danny Lohner
Black Light Burns chronology
Cruel Melody (2007) Cover Your Heart and the Anvil Pants Odyssey (2008)

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Cruel Melody is the name of Black Light Burns' debut album. Small pieces of the album come from past projects involving Wes Borland including Eat the Day, The Damning Well and an unreleased ambient solo record of Borland's. The bulk of the album, however, was written for this project.

Background

The song "I Have a Need" was originally going to be a Limp Bizkit song on The Unquestionable Truth. Wes Borland and Sam Rivers had already written the guitar and bass lines, but the song wasn't finished in favour of heavier tracks. Borland decided, with permission, to use the song for this album instead.

After the album was considered complete, Borland made a post on the band's MySpace saying that he awoke from a nightmare one night with a song in his head. He instantly went to his home studio to record a demo for it. With the band having some extra time, they went back into the studio to record one final song for the album, which is now called Mesopotamia. Borland has this to say on the subject matter of the song..." Basically Mesopotamia popped in my-it was in my head when I woke up from being attacked by a zombie in a dream. I woke up-it was pretty bad, pretty graphic, livid dream. When I woke up I had this song, like the beginning of the song in my head. And I just went, well, I got to get up and go record, even though I’m really tired. And that happens, that actually happens a lot where I wake up in the middle of the night and have something in my head, because the subconscious is operating on a high level. And I wake up and just go, as the little trickles are fading away, I have to really quickly get up and get over across my bedroom-my studio is basically right outside my bedroom, like in the living room, or set up in the dining room of my house. So I just go zip and try to get in there as fast as possible, and boot it up and go."

On July 27, Borland made another blog post revealing they were going to do three new songs instead of just one. The second song may be a duet with the band Endless Hallway.^[1] Of the three new songs, only "Mesopotamia" was included officially on the album as the first song. The other two songs, "Fall Below" and "Kill the Queen", were downloadable b-sides.

Parts of the song "Coward" appear as the closing credit track in the movie Underworld, which both Lohner and Borland contributed tracks to under the moniker 'Renholder'.

An advanced copy of the album was leaked onto the Internet on March 13, 2007, almost three months before the official release date.

The song "4 Walls" appears in the Burn Notice episode "Turn and Burn" from the second season.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
Alternative Press
DecoyMusic.com	[3]

• Alternative Press (p. 172) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Cruel Melody is still interesting, ambient and, much like its creators, unforgettable."

• Kerrang (p. 47) - "[The album] sports a confident, catchy gothic alt-rock sound, and Borland stepping up to the mic with an impressively suave vocal performance." ^[4]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Wes Borland

1. "Mesopotamia" - 4:27
2. "Animal" - 4:08
3. "Lie" - 4:19
4. "Coward" (featuring Sonny Moore) - 4:36
5. "Cruel Melody" (featuring Carina Round) - 5:00
6. "The Mark" - 3:13
7. "I Have a Need" (featuring Sam Rivers) - 4:24
8. "4 Walls" - 3:51
9. "Stop a Bullet" - 3:37
10. "One of Yours" - 4:51
11. "New Hunger" - 5:24
12. "I Am Where it Takes Me" (featuring Johnette Napolitano) - 6:09
13. "Iodine Sky" - 8:30

Bonus tracks

• "Kill the Queen" (BestBuy Bonus Track) - 4:56
• "Fall Below" (iTunes Bonus Track) - 4:16
• "Lie" (Daniel from Idiot Pilot Remix) - 4:14

European bonus tracks

• "Mesopotamia" (Assyrian Mix) - 5:45
• "Lie" (Seth Vogt Mix) - 6:27

Personnel

• Wes Borland - vocals, guitars, bass, programming, percussion, synths, piano, rhodes, violin, cello, drums on "I Am Where it Takes Me", mixing on "Iodine Sky"
• Danny Lohner - additional guitar on "I Have a Need" and "Coward", additional bass on "Coward" and "Lie", producer, programming, sound design
• Josh Eustis - synths, sound design, Engineering
• Josh Freese - drums, live percussion
• Sam Rivers - bass on "I Have a Need"
• Charlie Clouser - additional programming on "Lie"
• Tom Lord-Alge - mixing on all songs except "Mesopotamia" and "Iodine Sky"
• Femio Hernandaz - co-mixing on all songs except "Mesopotamia" and "Iodine Sky"
• Critter - engineering
• Ross Robinson - mixing on "Mesopotamia"
• Ryan Boesch - co-mixing on "Mesopotamia"

String Section

String instruments on "New Hunger" and "I Am Where it Takes me"

• Eric Gorfain - Violin
• Daphne Chen - Violin
• Lea Katz - Viola
• Richard Dodd - Cello
• John Krovoza - Cello
• Matt Cooker - Cello

References

1. ^ Endless Hallway
2. ^ "Cruel Melody - Black Light Burns". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1041044. 
3. ^ "Black Light Burns - Cruel Melody Review". DecoyMusic.com. http://www.decoymusic.com/reviews/1105. 
4. ^ http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7431630