Posts tagged with "music"

Going Backwards For Bands

I’ve been giv­ing Down and Superjoint Ritual a chance, and it’s weird to be lis­ten­ing to Phil Anselmo’s vocals against a sound that’s not quite Pantera. In the song Beautifully Depressed, he actu­al­ly sings with vibra­to. It’s a res­onat­ing vibra­to, but very grad­ual and deep, sort of like Mandy Patinkin with a shot of val­i­um and an injec­tion of testos­terone. The fact that he does a decent job of it com­plete­ly throws me off. The fact that quite a few SJR songs have punk­ish roots caus­es fur­ther con­fu­sion, just like Ministry’s punk­ish con­tri­bu­tion to the Rock Against Bush album. It’s like lis­ten­ing to the lat­est No Motiv album and then real­iz­ing that the bassist is now the drum­mer. On top of that, he’s Asian and bet­ter than the old drum­mer.

Speaking of which, going through No Motiv’s ear­li­er albums has been a fair­ly enjoy­able task. They’re com­prised of songs which aren’t as com­plex as Daylight Breaking, but they’re catchy nonethe­less. Unfortunately, It has­n’t been the same with Thrice, espe­cial­ly with their first album Identity Crisis. I can tell that they had some great tech­ni­cal ideas, but when actu­al­ly putting pen to paper and record­ing it in the stu­dio, the sound is rough, almost exper­i­men­tal.

It’s hard going back­wards for bands. I’m glad I dis­cov­ered Dreamtheater as soon as Scenes From A Memory came out. I don’t like much of what they did before that (aside from Space Dye Vest, which is one of my favourite songs of theirs), so it’s scary to think of what more I would­n’t like if I dis­cov­ered them even lat­er. I thought that Scenes From A Memory was going to be their best work, but some­how they man­aged to improve in every sin­gle pro­gres­sive (no pun intend­ed) album. Thrice does­n’t fare so well, of course, as I’ve been spoiled by their lat­est, excel­lent­ly pro­duced album, The Artist In The Ambulance. It’s makes their ear­li­er stuff sound untest­ed and lazy.

Album Review: No Motiv, Daylight Breaking

I real­ly have to say some­thing about No Motiv. When I first heard them, it was in prepa­ra­tion of a con­cert I was going to when they were open­ing for Strung Out about four years ago. I did­n’t real­ly like their first two albums aside from a few songs. They had a dis­tinct sound, but their lyrics, like advice from a com­fort­ing friend, did­n’t quite match. This band was like those kids I nev­er real­ly knew in high school, who weren’t pop­u­lar but had their own clique nonethe­less, and spent their free time mak­ing up songs and prac­tic­ing their instru­ments. The guys I’d sort of root for, not because their music blew me away, but because there was no one to appre­ci­ate them.

Their lat­est album, how­ev­er, takes things in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, hint­ed at in the album title “Daylight Breaking”. It’s dark­er, it’s mood­i­er, and it’s more devel­oped. Jeremy has clear­ly become more con­fi­dent with his singing, and this goes hand-in-hand with the new range of sound that they’ve devel­oped, from qui­et and bar­ren to heavy and angry. In pre­vi­ous albums, he sound­ed con­strict­ed, but now screams emo­tion­al­ly with con­trolled unre­straint. The lyrics demon­strate a new matu­ri­ty, and present a log­i­cal pro­gres­sion from their pre­vi­ous work. This is the album that they were meant to write, an album that makes them musi­cians and not just band mem­bers.

Now, as I lis­ten to their old­er mate­r­i­al, every­thing clicks, and I real­ize that I just was­n’t ready for this music four years ago. I don’t have any music that’s quite like this; a jour­ney through a com­ing-of-age that’s filled with ener­getic hope­ful­ness, along with the ups and downs asso­ci­at­ed with per­son­al growth, a sort of inspir­ing sad­ness. The lyrics bring me back to being a teenag­er again, when I thought peo­ple on TV were nor­mal, and believed that I should have been going through the same dain­ty prob­lems. It makes me think of what I want­ed to expe­ri­ence a long time ago, but nev­er had the chance.

Bel Canto

I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out how Bel Canto has cre­at­ed such ice cold music, then I real­ized that a lot of the mood comes not only from the chords, but the instru­ments them­selves. Most of them have no rever­ber­a­tion, and the ones that do begin with a stac­ca­to prick. On top of that, there’s no steady beat, just awk­ward, mil­i­tary style plucks. Add in some airy vocals with what I assume is a sopra­no sax (it’s a lit­tle too brassy to be a clar­inet, but sounds like a reed instru­ment nonethe­less), and almost any type of music would sound cold.

Mellisonant Apogee

I could nev­er under­stand why some songs could make my eyes water.

  • Radiohead — Paranoid Android, with its con­tra­dic­to­ry chords
  • Thrice — Artist in the Ambulance, with its repent­ing, inspi­ra­tional move­ments
  • Dreamtheater — Disappear, as the harp leads to dis­tor­tion in a bit­ter­sweet explo­sion
  • Billy Talent — Nothing to Lose, with its heartwrench­ing cho­rus
  • Godspeed, You Black Emperor! — Hungover as the Queen in Maida Vale, right when a sin­gle vio­lin inter­rupts the ser­mon
  • No Motiv — Born Again, when the drums kick in heavy and lead the lis­ten­er to the present
  • Lovage — Anger Management, with its pin­ing soft rock melody
  • The Dears — Heartless Romantic, with its thump­ing, dis­tort­ed bass hits against the dron­ing organ synth and dual vocals
  • Elliot Smith — Waltz #2, with its steady, but heart-break­ing tone
  • Bad Astronaut — These Days, every time the effu­sive cho­rus rush­es in
  • Strung Out — Match Book, in its entire ener­getic hope­ful­ness
  • Postal Service — The Dream Of Evan And Chan, through all the open­ing lines
  • Misfits — Saturday Night, as soon as the drag­ging gui­tars kick in
  • Portishead — Undenied, with Beths frag­ile voice accom­pa­ny­ing a sim­ple, dis­tort­ed loop

For the longest time I had assumed that it was the songs them­selves, com­posed so well with so much pain, that would blur my vision. These songs were sad, and tears were the prop­er response.

Then I heard some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, some­thing that was calm­ing yet lift­ing. A dreamy song by Modest Mouse called Float On, that filled me with an inde­scrib­able sat­is­fac­tion every time I heard it. And I real­ized that all these songs, as sad as they are, were mak­ing me hap­py.

So hap­py that tears are the prop­er response.

How The Music Moves Me

Didn’t want to go with­out say­ing some­thing about this throb­bing headache, and how this music makes me see emer­ald blue, gold­en stars, man­dolins, and the night sky. My head feels like it’s going to explode. Time for sleep with the win­dow open.