Category Archives: Music Review

Review: Turisas – Stand Up and Fight

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Turisas’s last release, The Varangian Way, got my vote for album of the year in 2007. It was a concept album, as so many monumental releases have been, telling the story of a band of viking soldiers of fortune traveling through Kievan Rus, intent on joining Byzantium’s Varangian Guard. Through sweeping symphonics, gritty folk, and a small but significant dose of progressive rock, the travelers encounter new lands, pass through Veliky Novgorod, party hard in king Yaroslav’s court, long for home while daring Dnieper rapids, and eventually arrive at the most majestic city in the world. (The back cover of the album is a map of Russia with each track title placed in its relevant location.) The lyrics might be shallow at times, and the English of questionable quality, but Turisas harness the power of names in a way I’ve never encountered before. When the central character raises “a toast to our generous host . . . ruler of Rus from coast to coast”, it’s the chanting of the Norse rendering of his name–Jarisleif! Jarisleif!–that really drills home the ruler’s greatness. The final, triumphal ending never mentions “Constantinople”. Nygård shouts “Tsargrad!” The chorus responds with “Konstantinopolis!” “The Golden Horn lives up to its name.” And the final resounding proclamation: “Great walls! Great halls! Greatest of all, Miklagard!”

I think it is the historic allusions, and the intensity with which they are employed, that really tip the scales from mere greatness to a masterpiece. If you have any fascination with history, you can’t help but be sucked in.

Stand Up and Fight is not nearly so consistant. At face value it certainly appears to be a continuation of the concept album. Hagia Sophia graces the cover. The opening track is called “The March of the Varangian Guard”, and the final track “The Bosphorus Freezes Over”. After a few listens, I caught on that, these three references aside, the album really has nothing to do with The Varangian Way. If you dig into the lyrics though, there are a few other Easter eggs.

The track most musically reminiscent of The Varangian Way is Venetoi! Prasinoi!

(Due to some bs copywrite issue you’ll have to click the link to hear this one.)

It’s a song about a chariot race, something I tend to associate with earlier Roman culture. If you plug “Venetoi” into wikipedia though, it redirects you specifically to the “Byzantine era” subsection of chariot racing. The use of lesser known names though isn’t at all emphasized like it is in The Varangian Way. The allusions are more subtle, meant I think to give a feeling of continuity without forcing the band to focus exclusively on one general topic. Track title aside, this song could take place in Rome proper.

Of course, The Varangian Way’s lyrics were dubious at times–(What the hell does the Nile river have to do with traveling through Rus to Constantinople?)–and their English was, if usually grammatically sound, not always quite on the mark. In the absence of allusions and grand proclamations, this is much more apparent on Stand Up and Fight. Consider Fear the Fear.

It opens with the lines “Bravery, as we’ve seen on TV: Explosions and swords, hot girls in reward.” How awkward is that? The song continues on with more words than most, and I’m pretty sure they’re attempting to convey some sort of message, but I don’t have a clue what it is. Yet the awkwardness isn’t always a bad thing. Skip to the last minute, and you’ll hear Nygård screaming “Die! Die you sucker! Let me go! Let me free motherfucker!” The way he does it, it’s just as cool as it is corny. It reminds me of Devin Townsend and Mikael Akerfeldt’s epic duet at the end of Ayreon’s “Loser”. … Well, that’s really a stretch, but that song is fucking awesome in ways I can barely comprehend, and I’ll take any excuse to link it:

.

Corny lyrics also play a hand in my favorite song on the album, Hunting Pirates.

(Due to some bs copywrite issue you’ll have to click the link to hear this one.)

Ok, first of all, it’s called Hunting Pirates. What the hell? The stuff Nygård babbles is ridiculous. “Kill them all! Let them die! Scum they are! Foe of mankind!” The music though, and his vocal style, are so fun that the cheese is almost a good thing. Besides, when he shouts “It is you who are the bad guys!” he’s not necessarily out to save the world. Plenty of folk metal bands are equally ridiculous, Turisas just take the less popular side. If if was a song about being a pirate, I’d laugh at the lines and not think twice about them.

My verdict on Stand Up and Fight: It’s catchy. It’s corny. It’s not The Varangian Way, but it’s miles beyond Battle Metal. Bare with the lyrics; they definitely overextend themselves in contemplation a few times, but for the most part it might only be their cultivation of a “good guy” persona that makes them appear any worse for wear than Alestorm’s demands for “more wenches and mead.” I mean, when I saw them live Nygård was chugging a bottle of vodka throughout the set.

Oh, while I was looking around youtube for functional links (without much success) I did find this:

Song of the Day: Battle Without Honor or Humanity (by Tomoyasu Hotei)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

To me, one of the most iconic sequences in 21st century cinema comes towards the end of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Volume One.  I’m talking about the scene in which Tokyo crime boss O-ren (played by Lucy Liu) walks through the House of Blue Leaves, flanked on either side by her bubble gum-chewing bodyguards.  While there’s a lot that makes  this scene memorable (the slow-mo staging, Liu’s regal yet fierce persona), what I always remember first when I think about this scene is the song playing on the soundtrack.

Of course, I’m talking about Tomoyasu Hotei’s Battle Without Honor or Humanity.  Though the song was not originally written for Kill Bill, it seem to almost perfectly epitomize volume one of Tarantino’s masterpiece.  Yes, it’s over-the-top and shamelessly excessive.  Yet, much like the best of the grindhouse films that inspired Tarantino, it’s performed with such an undeniable artistry that it’s impossible not to get drawn into it.

Whenever I’m out grocery shopping or walking to my office at the start of my workday, I always imagine that this is the song playing in the background.  It definitely brings a little stride to my step.

(The song has other uses as well.  A month ago, I wanted to perform a little impromptu dance for a friend of mine.  This is the song that I ended up dancing to because I knew that, with this song backing you up, it’s impossible not to look good doing whatever you might happen to be doing.)

What Lisa Watched Last Night: The Super Bowl Half-Time Show

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I type this, it is a little after midnight which means that technically, I did watch the Super Bowl Half-Time Show last night.

Why Was I Watching It?

To be honest, this was the first Super Bowl I’ve ever actually seen.  I’m not totally sure but I think this was also the first time that I’ve ever actually seen an entire football game.  I wasn’t planning on watching the Super Bowl.  As a matter of fact, I had already turned down an invitation to go to a super bowl party at my sister Megan’s precisely because I had decided I had no interest in watching the game.  I also turned down an invitation to go watch the game with Jeff’s family.  Instead, I thought I’d simply take advantage of everyone else watching the game by spending all of Sunday on a nice, big shopping spree.  However, about two hours into that spree, my asthma started to act up so I came home early, turned on the TV, and there was the game.  So, I left the game on while I did some online shopping (I nearly bought this until I noticed that it cost $725!) and then once I got onto twitter, everyone was talking about the game so I continued to watch the game and I ended up having so much fun commenting on it that I ended up watching the entire thing.  I do have to admit that I was, for the most part, completely and totally lost as to what was going on but no matter.  I had fun.

Anyway, once I started kinda watching the game, I realized there was no way I couldn’t watch the Super Bowl Half-Time Show. 

What’s It About?

Apparently, every year, some other band plays the Super Bowl during half-time.  This year, the band turned out to be the Black-Eyed Peas.  I have something of a girlcrush on Fergie.  Or at least I did until I saw the half-time show.

What Worked?

Uhmm…maybe this would work better if we start with what didn’t work.

What Didn’t Work?

Pretty much the entire show.  The Black Eyed Peas have been performing this exact same show for a few hundred years now and they could pretty much do it in their sleep which is what they appeared to be doing here. 

However, just saying that the Black Eyed Peas looked bored — well, that doesn’t begin to explain why this show inspired thousands of people to stare at their TV and scream, “Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!” like George C. Scott in Hardcore.  It’s not just that the show was bad — it was that it was bad in so many different ways and, in each case, it stretched the boundaries of what had previously been considered to be a believable level of failure.

Hence, Will.i.am not only appeared to have been replaced by a robot but he appeared to have been replaced by a robot that was actually Cartman underneath a cardboard box.  Fergie — who, in the past, I felt never got enough credit (her performance in Nine was one of the few exciting moments in that film) — was not only pitchy but actually sounded like she was auditioning for American Idol.  The two other Black-Eyed Peas were — well, who really cares about them?

Then you had the dancers in the neon costumes who all looked like they had wandered off of the set of Tron.  And, seriously, do we really want to be reminded of Tron at this point?

And then, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, Usher showed up.  “Look,” I said to my cat, “Usher’s still alive.”  “Meow,” the cat replied.  Usher sang a few notes that pretty much evaporated in the stadium and then jumped in the air and did the splits.  Which I guess would have been impressive except for the fact that he’s Usher and guys aren’t supposed to be able to do the splits like that.

I’m sure I could come up with a few more things that didn’t work but, quite frankly, I think my mind is repressing them right now.

What Worked?

Twitter.  In the nearly two years that I’ve been on twitter, I have never seen everyone as united as they were in their general ridicule of the Super Bowl halftime show.  So, in a strange way, the Black Eyed Peas brought the world together for about 15 minutes.

Here’s a few of my own tweets from the Half-Time Show:

Uhmm…is the half-time show a tribute to Tron? Where’s Jeff Bridges?

lol, Fergie couldn’t wait to get away from the rest of the Black Eyed Peas.

The Black-Eyed Peas are reminding me of that Stop Smoking Act from that episode of South Park.

The reason the crowd is cheering is b/c they can’t hear the Black Eyed Peas. That stadium is huge.

Oh good. I was just thinking that only Usher could save the half-time show.

And so, sadly, ends my girlcrush on Fergie.

Oh My God!  Just Like Me! Moments

I can’t sing that well either.

Lessons Learned

The Black Eyed Peas are about to reach that point where they end up with a reality show on VH1.

 

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Seven Souls (performed by Material and William S. Burroughs)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It was either 3 or 4 years ago that I first heard this song playing over the end credits of an episode of The Sopranos.  Other than recognizing the iconic and deadpan twang of the late William S. Burroughs, I had absolutely no idea who performed this song or even what the song’s title was.

However, this previous Christmas, I received a copy of The Sopranos: A Family History from my sister Erin and as I was reading through it last night, I came across a reference to the very song.  I discovered that the name of the song was “Seven Souls” and that it was performed by an “experimental” group called Material. 

I then proceeded to do even more extensive, deep-digging research and … well, okay, to be honest, I’m lazy so I just looked it up on Wikipedia.  And according to Wikipedia, Seven Souls was released in 1990 and it features William S. Burroughs reading passages from his book The Western Lands.

Anyway, here it is…”Seven Souls” by Material and William S. Burroughs…

Review: The Decemberists – The King is Dead

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Apparently this leaked in mid-December, but with all the holiday hassle I’ve only this weekend been able to start catching up on music again.

So, I’m on my third listen through this at the moment, and I’m kind of stumped on how to discuss it without revisiting their entire discography. I think if any other band released The King is Dead I wouldn’t give it the time of day. At face value it’s a standard countrified rock album that doesn’t present anything particularly special. I’ll even go so far as to say if The Decemberists released it five years ago it would have marked their end as the kings of indie rock. (Pun slightly intended?) But it has to be considered in its proper place and time.

Colin Meloy’s lyrical brilliance has been present since the get-go. Anyone who’s heard their “5 Songs” EP from 2001 should recognize in My Mother was a Chinese Trapeze Artist the same wit that prevailed in later, more famous works.

What did change over the years was their quality as musicians and song-writers. “5 Songs” boasted nothing comparable in musical creativity to 2002’s Cataways and Cutouts. With each new album a higher bar was set, and practically every song that followed rose to the challenge. Lyrically, Meloy probably peaked in 2005, with The Mariner’s Revenge Song on Picaresque.

From there the comedy act was cut back; Meloy returned to a more subtle cleverness. The band took the same turn musically, and with 2006’s The Crane Wife reached what might be the highest point in indie music. If not the most inspired album of the genre–I reserve that title for Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea–I have to consider it the all-around best. Here are Yankee Bayonet and Sons and Daughters as examples.


Then, in 2009, The Hazards of Love happened. It wasn’t completely unprecedented; in 2004 they released The Tain EP, an experimental break from their standard sound, which attempted, quite successfully I think, to create something far more thematic and sophisticated than mere indie rock. The Hazards of Love added to this 18 minute experiment five years of experience, and produced what can only really be described as a rock opera. Coming in at just under an hour, the album is a single piece, not a collection of independent songs. It deserves to go down in history as one of the greatest musical accomplishments of all time. It can’t be captured in a single movement, but here are two excerpts to give you an idea.


Now it’s 2011, about time for a new album, and I don’t think the band need be too full of themselves to ask “Where the hell do we go from here?” They surely knew they couldn’t top what they’d just accomplished any time soon, so they didn’t even bother trying. Is The King is Dead a “safe” album? A sort of “sorry guys” to the fans who just weren’t prepared for the intensity and complexity of Hazards of Love? Hardly, though it could be misconstrued as such. I think it’s The Decemberists coming down off their own high. I imagine it’s difficult to be as… musically intelligent as they are without some fear of becoming pretentious. Getting back to some good old country rock was the natural thing to do. I don’t imagine anyone expected to hear another Hazards of Love, but don’t be disappointed that it’s not another Crane’s Wife either. It’s pretty damn good for what it is, it just doesn’t reach for the stars.

I’ll post up four songs from the new album. Don’t Carry It All is the opening track. It’s worth noting that the fiddle and accordion interlude in Rox in the Box is from the Irish traditional song Raggle Taggle Gypsy (see variations by The Irish Descendants and The Chieftains). It’s not worth noting that This is Why We Fight, which I decided not to post, sounds like it’s straight off an Our Lady Peace album, and furthermore that my obsession with Our Lady Peace is a very embarrassing secret.

Don’t Carry It All

Rox in the Box

Rise to Me

Down by the Water

Song of the Day: For Whom the Bell Tolls (by Metallica)

Posted on by Arleigh

It took awhile but Metallica has finally made another appearance in the “song of the day” feature. This time around they return with one of their best songs. A song which has become iconic of early-Metallica amongst their most die-hard fans. The song is “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.

This track comes in third on the band’s second album and was inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. It is also the song which contains one of the best opening riffs in metal history. A riff not born from lead guitarist Kirk Hammett’s axe, but from it’s bassist Cliff Burton. This opening riff shows Cliff Burton at his best and the fact that people continue to mistake the riff as guitar instead of bass just shows how talented the man was.

This song is all about Burton’s work on the bass with Hetfield supplying the vocals and Hammett’s lead guitar work almost behaving like an accompaniment. It is no wonder that whenever talk comes around as to who is the best metal bassist (or just rock bassist) ever no discussion could ever be considered credible if Cliff Burton’s name was not included.

While Burton died just two years after the single’s release while th eband was on tour in Sweden his contribution as both writer and composer to this song will forever cement his legacy amongst metal and music fans for countless generations.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Make his fight on the hills in the early day
Constant chill deep inside
Shouting gun, on they run through the endless grey
On they fight, for they are right, yes, but who’s to say?

For a hill, men would kill, why? They do not know
Stiffened wounds test their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know

For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls

Take a look to the sky just before you die
It is the last time you will
Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry

Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now they see, what will be, blinded eyes to see

For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Big City Nights (dir. by Spike Jonze)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I saw Tron: Legacy, I couldn’t get the Daft Punk soundtrack out of my head and, of course, any time I think about Daft Punk, I end up thinking about the plight of lonely dog named Charles, trying to make it on his own in the big city.

I’m referring, of course, to Spike Jonze’s brilliant short film, Big City Nights.  Often mistakenly considered to merely be a music video, it is instead a satire of the conventions of pop culture that also works as an affectionate homage to every fish (or dog) out of water story ever told.  Daft Punk’s Da Funk just happens to be playing in the background.

I think I was either 11 or 12 when I first saw it, at which time I think I just thought it was kind of funny and kind of weird and not much else.  Fortunately, I was able to rediscover it when I bought a wonderful little DVD called The Works of Director Spike Jonze.

Anyway, like most works of brilliance, the art speaks for itself…

(Sorry, clicking on the embedded video here will cause another link — leading to the actual video on Youtube — to come up.  Which sucks!  But the link is safe and the video is worth watching.)

41 Songs But No End Credits

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Academy has released a list of the 41 songs that they have determined are “eligible” for an Oscar nomination next year.  Considering how this year has gone, I shouldn’t be surprised that the songs that I really liked (like “Kick Ass” from Kick Ass and “End Credits” from Harry Brown) have not been deemed eligible.

Anyway, via Awards Daily, here’s the complete list of the eligible songs:

“Alice” from “Alice in Wonderland”
“Forever One Love” from “Black Tulip”
“Freedom Song” from “Black Tulip”
“Bound to You” from “Burlesque”
“Welcome to Burlesque” from “Burlesque”
“You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” from “Burlesque”
“There’s a Place for Us” from “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”
“Coming Home” from “Country Strong”
“Me and Tennessee” from “Country Strong”
“Despicable Me” from “Despicable Me”
“Prettiest Girls” from “Despicable Me”
“Dear Laughing Doubters” from “Dinner for Schmucks”
“Better Days” from “Eat Pray Love”
“If You Run” from “Going the Distance”
“Darkness before the Dawn” from “Holy Rollers”
“Sticks & Stones” from “How to Train Your Dragon”
“Le Gris” from “Idiots and Angels”
“Chanson Illusionist” from “The Illusionist”
“Never Say Never” from “The Karate Kid”
“To the Sky” from “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole”
“What If” from “Letters to Juliet”
“Life during Wartime” from “Life during Wartime”
“Made in Dagenham” from “Made in Dagenham”
“Little One” from “Mother and Child”
“Be the One” from “The Next Three Days”
“If I Rise” from “127 Hours”
“When You See Forever” from “The Perfect Game”
“I Remain” from “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”
“Dream Big” from “Pure Country 2: The Gift”
“How I Love You” from “Ramona and Beezus”
“Darling I Do” from “Shrek Forever After”
“Noka Oi” from “Six Days in Paradise”
“This Is a Low” from “Tamara Drewe”
“I See the Light” from “Tangled”
“Rise” from “3 Billion and Counting”
“We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3″
“Eclipse: All Yours” from “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”
“Nothing” from “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too”
“A Better Life” from “Unbeaten”
“Shine” from “Waiting for ‘Superman’”
“The Reasons Why” from “Wretches & Jabberers”

I saw Burlesque with my friend Evelyn earlier tonight (hi, Evelyn!) and even though the movie was pretty silly, we ended up singing our own version of “Bound to You” for three hours afterward. 

I also thought that “Better Days” from Eat Pray Love and “Dear Laughing Doubters” from Dinner For Schmucks were both perfect examples of good songs written for rather disappointing movies.

Still, I’m sad to see that “Pimps Don’t Cry” won’t be getting a chance to bring The Other Guys some Oscar glory.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Host of Seraphim (performed by Dead Can Dance)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, out there!

Okay, for those of you who haven’t been following along, on Monday, Arleigh posted an entry about Frank Darabont firing the Walking Dead’s writing staff and how this might indicate that Darabont is planning on being the show’s sole writer.

So, of course, me being the little contrarian that I am, I had to stick my big Italian nose into it all and comment about how much I hate The Shawshank Redemption and about how Stephen King is an insecure whore.  And this, of course, led to all of the boys fighting over whether or not The Mist had a good ending.

(I’m joking a little here — it’s actually been a pretty interesting discussion.)

Anyway, I’ve already taken my side in the argument, which is that The Mist had a terrible ending but that terrible ending was scored with a really good and haunting song.

And here that song is : The Host of Seraphim by Dead Can Dance.