Book of Saturday

Got hold of Tommy finally and gave it a few listens. The song "Sparks" is stuck in my head. Especially the part where John Entwistle starts his crazy bass line. Apart from The Who, I've been listening to some of my favourites like King Crimson and CCR. I think CCR and King Crimson are two highly underrated bands. These guys made some amazing music. CCR is the funkiest rock and roll band I've ever heard. Their riffs are just too cool. They were probably one of the earliest "jam" bands. Who can ever forget their classic jam on "Heard it through a grapevine"?! John Fogerty's vocals are just awesome.

And coming to King Crimson, this band is the best prog-funk-psychedelia combination ever. Its definitely one of the most innovative bands ever. All the members of the band amazing at what they do. Robert Fripp's riffs are crazy. There are just too many good songs to mention any one. Some of my favs would be Cat Food, Dinosaur, 21st Century Schizoid Man, Walk on Air, Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream.

The Dillinger Escape Plan (DEP) is another band that I've been hooked to for a couple of days. Their music is mostly hardcore with lots of jazz thrown in. This is the first hardcore band that I've liked so much. My earlier attempts to "like" a very famous hardcore band, Orchid, failed miserably. I didn't understand what the hell these guys were doing. But then there's a time when the band or the music just clicks with you. DEP is not another average run of the mill handcore act. For starters, these guys are incredibly talented. I've been listening to two of their EPs. The first one is called "Under the running board". The EP consists of 3 songs clocking 7 mins 33 secs in total! All 3 songs are brilliant and the album leaves you exhausted at the end of the 7 mins 33 secs. I think less is more in this kind of metal. Mastodon's EP Lifesblood did the same exact thing to me. Its like a mind blowing hailstorm which makes you want to listen to the album again and again and again! The second EP titled "Irony is a dead scene" has the eccentric Mike Patton (of Faith No More) on vocals. He is one of my favourite vocalists. This guy comes a close second to Devin Townsend in the "most insane musician awards" :) Just listen to any of his records with Fantomas, Tomahawk or Mr. Bungle and you'll go bonkers. Too bad Patton didn't stick around with DEP for their later albums. The jazzy breakdowns in all their songs make the music very interesting. Anyway be sure to check out these three bands and I'll be back with info about more bands that no one wants to listen to :D

Six Songs

I've been to these six songs over and over for the whole of last week. What they have in common is hard to explain, so I won't even try. Figure it out for yourself :P

.1. Harsh Kale feat. Ustad Zakir Hussain - Milan. This has to be the best fusion song I've ever heard and it's all the more better because most of it is based on the tabla, flute and drums (accompanied by lots of other instruments). The song is slow, but it's energy is amazingly contagious! I couldn't help trying to make a silly and corny story out of it, so I did. It's about this fellow in jail who escapes and all to meet his girlfriend. No one's sad even when he's in jail, everyone's just hopeful and not happy then. When they meet, they have everything (i.e. each other) and they run away to settle down in Sikkim.

.2. Dr. Alban - It's My Life. This is a GOD song!! The story: A girl running away from home to do her own thing (whatever it is). The scene is at the railway station when she's about to get into the train. Instead of everything being sad, the sun is rising and "It's my life" is playing :)

.3. Judas Priest - Breakign the Law. The ultimate rebellion song! The instruments get along together well to bring out rebellion with "hypnotic cool". The video's extremely funny with everyone looking like cartoon characters. The song is amazing anyway.

.4. Survivor - Eye of the Tiger. Now why would I say anything about this song? Anyone who's ever seen Rocky when he's training will know the song. If you're feeling down and need inspiration, this song is what you've got to listen to so it'll all be okay.

.5. Dido - White Flag. Her voice is good and there's lots of feeling in the song. The lyrics are very nice too in their own way.

.6. Gary Jules - Mad World. People who've seen Donnie Darko will relate to this song better. It's the song that plays at the end of the movie. It fits in perfectly even though it wasn' t meant to be in the movie and was actually the second choice (U2's MLK was first). The lyrics are amazing and you can fee the amused sort of frustration in the singer's voice.

Ok, this post turned out to be much more pointless than I thought. Sorry :P

The Crown

I've been spending a lot of time posting on this blog lately. This time its about an other Swedish death metal band called the "The Crown". Their album "Deathrace King" grows on me everytime I play it. Its definitely one of the catchiest death metal records of all time. I've heard a lot of people call their music "Death Rock". People have written about their obvious Motorhead influences. Well, I haven't really heard Motorhead, but I think I'm gonna have to start. Coming back to The Crown, their riffs are too catchy. With classic heavy metal solos and very good vocal performace by Johan Lindstrand. I think all those guys who hate/are afraid of/don't care for death metal would do good by listening to this band. A lot of the music on this album is more like heavy metal than death metal, except for the vocals though. I was searching for some album reviews on the net, and found this interview of their bassist on metalstorm. An excerpt from the interview:


10: According to your personal experience, what would you advise a young band that is just starting in metal music?

Quit! It is not worth it! This is only for those who HAVE to do it. For the possessed who have no other choice or option...and they do not take advice.


Wow! That was interesting. Anyway, I got hold of 2 other albums of this band. But this album is so catchy and it won't leave me...

Storm

I've been writing code ..well, atleast trying to write code for about 10 hours. All the while I had Devin Townsend's Accelerated Evolution playing in the background. I've heard the album a few times before but today it really kicked me! Hence the post. I'm a big fan of his other projects Ocean Machine and Strapping Young Lad. Its very difficult to pin this kind of music to a particular genre. It has elements of rock, prog, metal and techno music. If you are a Strapping Young Lad fan, then you'd be utterly surprised at how different Devin's other side projects are. Devin's voice is excellent throughout the album. In fact, sometimes I feel that this guy has the most powerful voice in the realm of rock and metal. The only other vocalists that I can thnk of, with such commanding voices are Chuck Schuldiner, Phil Anselmo, James Maynard Keenan and probably Eddie Vedder. If there was such a thing as "the most insane voice ever" award, it would go to Devin anyday. (I love giving these awards for some reason :) He sings beautifully along with the music and suddenly double bass kicks in and Devin goes berserk, after a few seconds everything is pleasant again! The music is almost surreal. This is not the kinda music that you'd want to sit down and analyze. This isn't even the kinda music that has cool guitar leads and drum work. Its really emotional music. You can hear it in Devin's voice and in the melodies. It might take a while to start liking the music. Needless to say, this music is not for everybody.

OPETH

GOD

Deliverance >>> GOD

My Arms , Your Hearse >>>> GOD

Blackwater Park >>> GOD

Morningrise >>> GOD

Damnation >>> GOD ; In My time of Need >>> GOD GOD GOD !!!

Ghost Reveries >>> GOD

Melody, Lyrics >>> GOD

Martin Lopez >>> GOD

Micheal Akerfeldt >>> SUPERGOD

OPETH >>> GOD

I've been listening to this band a lot recently and one word that keeps coming to my mind all the time is 'GOD'

Listen to them first and then comment.

mvikred

Fever Dog

Watched the movie "Almost Famous" for the 4th time last weekend. Crazy movie. My rock n roll spirit is back again! The Stillwater song "Fever Dog" is stuck in my head. Love the vocals and the riff and the intro. A fuckin cool song! Pearl Jam's McCready played the guitar in the movie. For one full day, I heard just Led Zeppelin and Hendrix. I so desperately wanted to listen to Tommy, but couldn't get hold of it. I love the scene where young William takes out the record of Tommy and finds a note in it which says "Listen to Tommy with a candle burning, you will see your future".
Today, I watched "Atom Heart Mother - The Ultimate Critical Review". More Floyd. Looks like Floyd had done everything way before their time. Ron Geesin is the mastermind behind all the weird stuff that you hear on Atom Heart Mother. For some reason, his name does not appear on the disc's credits. This post is more like a movie review. Anyway, saw this other movie last weekend. Its called "Dead Man" starring Johnny Depp. The movie was awesome but what was more awesomeo was the guitar playing in the background in all the scenes. All throughout the movie I was thinking that the scene wouldn't be the same without the guitar. Later I found out that Neil Young played the guitar. Neat! Enough of rock n roll. Back in the Opeth mode. Listening to Blackwater Park. Hail Satan!

Pelican

This is a recent discovery. About a month back, I downloaded a couple of albums of this band called Pelican. I had obviously read the reviews of the band before downloading the albums. I always do. And I always make sure that I read lots of them, because I believe that I can trust the collective opinion of 10 reviews. Anyway, one of the two albums is a self-titled EP and the other is a full length album titled "Australasia".

To start with, there are no vocals on the album! Its all instrumental. I was initially very unsure of what kind of stuff to expect. Because instrumental metal albums come by very rarely (I'm not talking of the Malmsteen types here) I thought I'd try this out. And it turned out to be one of the most innovative bands I've ever heard. They don't have lightning fast leads. Infact, they don't have any guitar leads on their songs. Neither do they have amazing drum work. But what they do have in all their songs can't be put into words! Its beautiful heavy, downtuned, crunching guitar riffs. Some of the most mesmerizing riffs I've ever heard. Yeah thats the word! Mesmerizing. I've hrd the two albums countless times until now. And everytime I listen to the songs, get lost. I have visions of ships, oceans, far away lands, wars and giants! Brilliant stuff.

Now thanks to reddy's 2 day subscription to rapidshare, I could get hold of a couple of albums of this band called Isis, pioneers of this kind of music. These guys have vocals though. I can't wait to listen to the new stuff, but I'm still hooked to Pelican. I'm alone in my wing, almost everyone's at home. And my speakers are blaring Pelican. Its an awesome feeling :)