Originally posted by Great King Rat
Here you go, another album for you to enjoy:
[youtube]Wxi4HbG_8V8[/youtube]
Ok, I'm going to use some terms which I'm probably not qualified to use and that those who actually study music would probably laugh at, or just blink at uncomprehendingly. They mean something to me (if a bit nebulous) in this context, and I'll try to clarify them as I go along.
Liked:
The musicians possess technical ability. Their rhythms are tight and the lead/solo instrumental parts are cleanly picked out.
They covered different genres, albeit staying within their overall sound world (I heard jazz, folk, blues, rock and lots of heavy metal (the last of these seemed to be their musical home). Apologies if I have incorrectly named it.
Disliked:
Thin vocals and thin overall sound. It felt to me that there was very little 'body' to the sound. What do I mean by 'body'? I have no idea how to explain it in terms of sound — maybe brass instruments or piano playing chords with some reverberation and just a richer, more rounded tone in general.
I didn't care for the singer's delivery at all. For me it made it virtually impossible to decipher the words, and ensured that I didn't want to put myself to the trouble of straining my ears by doing so.
Above all, I felt there is a very limited 'harmonic palette'. That may turn out to be a nonsensical made up term, but it basically comes down to that 'heavy metal' sound to me. Within that there is a lot of variation, but to me this sound world sounds like anti-music (I.e. Instead of activating the pleasure centres in the brain that I believe naturally respond to certain harmonies, chord progressions and melodic patterns, it seems to hit nothing emotionally satisfying or pleasurable, rather the opposite).
Overall, I was interested to hear the music, at least for the first 10-15 minutes, but I derived no pleasure from it in the sense that I usually find pleasure in music I like listening to, of whatever genre. The limited 'pleasure' was just observing the patterns and occasionally hearing 'echoes' of more preferred music in the different genres. It was a cold, unsettling pleasure of calculation. I probably listened to 30-35 minutes before turning it off.
I know what it's like to hear someone who doesn't appreciate the music you love rip into it from a position of ignorance or at least indifference, but I'm sure my obvious floundering about with music criticism will ameliorate any sense of injury you feel. 🙂 Thanks for the recommendation.