Customer Reviews

Broken Valley

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Customers beware! This CD ontains malware that will damage your Windows OS!

As many people may know by now, Sony was recently caught with egg on their face when a security specialist found out that a recently purchased CD (Van Zant: Get Right With The Man) from Sony music not only installed DRM software (digital rights management, to limit and outright prevent copying music to certain devices), but it did so in such a sneaky way that it hid itself entirely from Windows, and opened the system up to security issues such as viruses.

This CD has the same copyright protection, called XCP. When installed, Sony hijacks your computer and installs custom software which:

1) Hides itself entirely from Windows by installing as a rootkit
2) Hides itself in such a manner that any files begining with $sys$ are also hidden. For example, if you install the XCP copy protection software on your machine, and rename "document.doc" to "$sys$document.doc" it then becomes invivisble to you forever.
3) Installs its own custom CD-Rom drivers to hijack your system. It also sneakily names these drivers "Plug and Play Device Manager" to seem as if it's a part of Windows. Trying to delete these drivers manually will disable your CD-Rom drive entirely.
4) Offers no uninstall option until you manually contact Sony

As of my writing this review, Sony has "apologized" for this incident, and claims they will "re-evaluate" this copyright protection software on their CDs in the future.

In the meantime, a virus is currently running wild, which names itself begining with $sys$ in an attempt to hide from the user and virus scanners.

Several class action lawsuits are also pending against Sony right now.

In summary, as you can tell from above, Sony's actions here are absolutely horrible. This is your music. You purchased it, and they should not have any right to dictate how you can use it, let alone install software which compromises your system security.

This is one of the CDs with Sony's XCP copyright protection software on it, and as a result, you should not buy it to send a message to Sony that this will NOT be tolerated in the future.

This CD contains a compromising DRM rootkit which can greatly affect the Windows operating system. Do not buy.

This is yet another CD with the silly copy protection that prevents you from making direct copies with Nero or Adaptec. The software on the CD installs automatically when you insert the CD and prevents listening to the CD quality audio on your computer. You are forced to listen to lossy WMA versions. Just make sure you have "autorun" disabled on your computer so the software doesn't install on your computer automatically.

Life of Agony were once a heavy industrial sounding band, and now they are a heavy alternative-metal sound. Sort of like a cross between LOA, Velvet Revolver and STP. Amazing stuff. A lot of the reviews here are from people who love LOA's older albums, particularly River Runs Red - a GREAT album. You should definitely pick that up for the heavy industrial/melodic guitar-driven sound. THIS album is more vocal-driven, great in its own right. Most of Broken Valleys songs are amazingly written and the vocals are more mature and show greater range than previous LOA releases. Think of Broken Valley as Life of Agony: Version 2.

1. Love to let you down. ***** Tempo changes and aggro guitars highlight amazing melodic vocals. One of the best LOA songs, no wonder they open their sets with this song. A great breakdown gets the pit going...

2. Last Cigarette. ***** Any STP/Velvet Revolver fan should purchase this album for this song alone, which is better than any VR song and any song from STP's last 3 albums. Yet its still LOA somehow! The solos over the driving riff with the pounding snare and rythm that ends the song is the best.

3. Wicked Ways. *** "Should have known what those wounds have wanted..." Great lyrics and vocals the highlight.

4. Don't Bother. **** Another STP sounding song. The verses work well as the vocals follow the stop/start of the guitar riffs. And we have a great scale for the chorus. As usual, driving breakdowns from LOA. Song never lets up!

5. Strung Out. *** Gotta love it when LOA goes aggro during their breakdowns. The rest of the song is heartfelt, anthem driven chorus.

6. Junk Sick. ** Most people don't like the opening riff that repeats for the whole song. I agree. Sounds like an AIC/Dirt-like sound about drugs.

7. The Calm That Disturbs You. ***** Best song on the album. Awesome fast-paced riffs with alternating vocals. An aggro chorus keeps the pace up until the music stops and Keith wails the song title.

8. No One Survives. ** Fast song followed by the slowest. A stop gap for the rest of the album with pianos and stuff. Not good on its own but sounds nice after The Calm That Disturbs You.

9. Justified. *** Medium paced and atmosphere rich. Not a very memorable track but at this point in the album we go into a more relaxing tone.

10. The Day He Died. **** Bluesy wailing about the song title. Best vocals on the album in the chorus, in my opinion of course!

11. Broken Valley. ** Interesting choice for a title track, in that its probably the least stand-out song.

12. Room 244. ** An interlude without vocals.

Keep in mind this album is not classic LOA but is a great album on its own. Best heavier release so far this year.

It's Life of Agony, but a little off-centered. Now, to help you better understand my perspective let me rate a few other Life discs. I think Ugly is their best cd...it was a nice blend of the heavy, and carried a little more of a melody focus than their debut. Soul Searching Sun had some great music, but Keith didn't provide the oomph to lead it; still not a bad cd. River Runs Red Again is a decent live compilation and you could feel there was a new energy reviving in the band...and I like many, couldn't wait to see that energy released. Well, we are still going to have to wait.

The disc has a whole new tone for Life, to be more exact, the guitar tone. It has a more modern Queen of the Stones Age vibe.
Don't expect Joey Z's crunchy riffs in this package. The riffs are few and far between. Another major setback is the mix of the cd. I can't put my finger on it, but it seems like the guitar, bass, and drums are weak and unbalanced. I've listened to this at least 8-10 times and I still can't put a pulse on it. Oh and the last track, Room 224, is fecal matter.

The upside is that Keith seems to have put a little more effort into the vocals this time around. There are some decent songs and majority of them may grow on you, but you have to allow it time to digest. Though, I wouldn't blame you if it just doesn't go down. Hopefully, they don't peter out and will heed the advice of their fans and bring back the punch.

Its hard not to compare a band with their older works, even though it can pigeonhole them into a certain sound or style. These guys are no different, even with the long hiatus. The same that has been said many times about this album I can say myself as well, when i started listening to track 2 "Last Cigarette" I thought I was listening to circa "Tiny Music..." Stone Temple Pilots. The album has an uplifting feel to it which is a complete 180 from River Runs Red for sure. Everything sounds decent, but after finishing the album I felt it was an empty generic effort. Nothing any different than the 100's of other bands out there at the moment. That is sad because LOA was never like this in the early days. I would definitely recommend starting with River Runs Red then Ugly. Soul Searching Sun vs This one is a tough call but I never listented to much of SSS.

That being said, the live show is still insanely good. Never a let down in that aspect of LOA.

I love Life of Agony. RRR, Ugly, and SSS might be the most impressive hard rock efforts of the nineties. Each album developed and evolved very naturally. All three albums are very different, but not different enough where you would think it was a concious decision by the band. It was just the way things worked out. Each album caters to a mood...

As for Broken Valley...my biggest problem with it might be that it doesn't cater to any mood. It doesn't know what kind of album it wants to be. There is a few songs that remind you how great LOA are, a bunch that are mediocre, and the remaining ones sound like Velvet Revolver. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's certaintly not a good thing.

Considering how much I love the first 3 albums, and the pedastal I put them on when LOA were gone for 7 years, Broken Valley is definitelly a dissapointment. I've had the CD for a couple of weeks now, and I feel like I'm done with it already. The songwriting is just off, and the producer should be gutted for overproducing the album. This might be the most overproduced album ever.

I'll bring it back full circle by saying...It's not a bad album, it's just not up to LOA's standards.

The Good.
'Love to Let you down'
'Wicked Ways'
'Justified'
'The Day He Died'
'Broken Valley'

The Bad.
'Strung Out'
'Junk Sick'
'The Calm that Disturbs You'
'No One Survives'

The Velvet Revolver
'Last Cigarette'
'Don't Bother'

Sony should be ashamed for infecting PCs in which this CD is played.

Amazon should stop selling this CD immediately given the known damage that is causes to computers.

Brutal. I know people are saying that a band can't stay heavy, but look at Megadeth's last effort - brilliant. Sorry Keith, you were lost at 22 and I just lost $13 on your cd. Better luck next time!