General > Off Topic
Music Review Trader
LuckyDee:
I have Spotify, so I'll have a look. You're next on the list!
Uranium:
Ah man, shame you don't like it as much as I do - but I definitely see where you're coming from with the monotony; the album (for me) treads a fine line between repetition and monotony, I definitely understand how it could cross too far into monotony for people. Will give WotW a listen and get back to you. I've never listened to a musical like this before, so this should be interesting!
thelaptop:
Artist: Fantômas
Album: Delìrivm Còrdia
Grade: 8/10 will kill again
Motivation: A soundscape that shocks with strong contrasts and ambient mood feels.
I want to say that I gave old LuckyDee that album to start with as a means of throwing him completely off because I knew that it was something that he'd, with great probability, not find nor listen on his own accord. Joke's on me though, because now I've got to listen to something that I'd not find nor listen on my own accord.
LuckyDee was right in saying that this album is something that is more suited for passive listening than active listening, and here's why. There is no melody nor motif the way that one more conditioned to "traditional" music can latch on to explore the development of the music using standard techniques. While not completely synthetic in terms of timbre (much of the sound that appears can be readily identified with a real instrument counterpart), the soundscape evokes a stronger sense of a primal and visceral reaction than anything that is more cerebral in nature.
That is not a con -- I like that concept. But it is hard to look for them personally.
The thematic exploration of the album (technically a single piece with multiple implicit movements) emphasises on contrast. The contrast of loudness against softness, the contrast of melodic movement against ambient sound, the contrast of meter against free-time, the contrast of a primeval music form against a more structured one. It is due to this nature of contrasts that it makes it much easier to appreciate the album through letting one's mind absorb the sound that enters and make sense of it from the perspective of evaluating a soundscape than a musical piece [steeped in music theory for construction].
Percussion plays a strong role in this album, and by that, I don't necessarily mean that of traditional drum-kit type percussion. Guitars, and even voice, are played to their percussive potential, emphasising strong atonal beats that juxtaposes between maintaining a countable meter against one that is more complex in nature. This, of course, adds to the primeval type feel that dominates the album in nearly its entirety.
But primeval feelings aside, the album still has its moments of conventional music theory-esque moments, but with more suspended chords and minor scale-like progressions, a framework that I think is common for the more fringe metal sub-genres. The high tension that comes about from such harmonic structures increase the "evil" aura feel of the music, making it sound more foreboding and terrifying, as though some kind of eldritch horror were about to be released. It is the kind of music one would likely to bring to mind when called to imagine the scene of a psychopathic serial killer about to go on its next big kill. The contrast helps with this visualisation by characterising the interstices between morbid serenity and maximised ultraviolence.
What keeps me from giving it a full ten out of ten is the ear fatigue that comes from listening to this album. There is too much tension that gets built up through the combination of soundscape techniques and harmonic structure that does not get resolved in an agreeable way. For the purposes of the concept that the album is trying to convey, it works remarkably well, but for my personal listening pleasure, I find it hard to accept. I'd listen to this album more than once, but separated by a fairly large time interval, and probably never in the dark, alone, at night, with that hankering homicidal feel so as to avoid committing crimes against humanity.
There we go LuckyDee, told you I'd have it done before the end of the month. And now, I need to go rest my ears. =P
LuckyDee:
Wow, excellent piece right there. You're obviously deeper into the music theory than I am - which I kinda already knew - and I could learn a thing or two from that. And of course I'm glad you're impressed with the album. Mike Patton (whom most people will know from Faith No More) is the mastermind behind this, and I'm a big fan of nearly everything he does. I don't even think this is Fantômas' best work - check out Suspended Animation if you want - but yeah, the pure evil dripping off most every direction this album takes is really impressive to me.
I've grown pretty much accustomed to listening to less conventional pieces like this one, but I do realize it may be daunting to take it all in and still beg for more. Kudos to you for your effort, and good to know we're even as far as pulling each other from our comfort zones is concerned.
Insert album to continue.
Sereg:
Alright, found a video with the full album for this one. Please let me know what you think of Nightwish's Century Child.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version