Lyrics and music

A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with one friend of mine. We mostly talked about some bands we like to listen to, the lyrics of their songs and what kind of live shows they do.

At some point one of my friend's other friend joined us while we were discussing about some band's lyrics. He soon declares that in his opinion the melodies and talented playing are far more important than the lyrics of the songs. Kind of an interesting point of view I must say, but also a bit funny. Atleast we had a nice discussion about it, and he did have a few good points to back up his opinion.

I think it is understandable, kind of, since we were talking about metal music, where you often have to look up the lyrics yourself from the album booklet or from the internet. Because, tbh, most of the time your ears/mind can't extract the words from the vocalist's performance.

Anyways, the funny thing was, that the person I was talking with only knew the names of the songs of a certain artist, but had no idea what the songs were about. I was a bit amazed of this, because I've usually kept the lyrics as one of the main reasons to like or dislike a band/song. I mean, if the lyrics were really something close to utter bs, it immediately decreases my interest towards the band. Ofcourse this is a rather extreme example and it doesn't apply in all cases, but you get the idea. Atleast I would find it a little strange to cheer for a band that praises something in its songs I fully disagree with.

In the end, I think we managed to convince him to take a closer look to the lyrics of the bands. I hope so. Not necessarily memorize all the lyrics, but atleast to get a faint idea what the songs are about. 

New layout !

Ok, here's the first attempt to upgrade my blog's layout.  I think it already got a significant improvement compared to the previous one, although there are still some details I'd like to add / change.
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And what comes to improvements, here's an awesome song made even more awesome!

I recommend checking out vadrum's other videos too. Very impressive classical music drum adaptations.

Memorable songs of the 80's

I'll come up with more movie reviews once I get some time to write them. Writing them has actually turned out being a quite time consuming process.

Anyway, I happened to hear a Blue Oyster Cult song on the radio today, I had almost totally forgotten about this awesome band! Because of this, I got a suddent urge to dig up some other classics which I haven't listened for a long time. Here's Veteran of the psychic wars!

The second pick is a bit late, but in memory of Gary Moore (1952-2011), Victims of the future (live).

And the last but definitely not the least, Def Leppard - Coming Under Fire!

Album releases 2011

This year seems to be great when it comes to new albums!

To name a few:
Rush
Tool (?)
Neurosis
Nightwish
Tarot

To be a good song

What makes one band better than another? Most answers are something like "this band has this awesome guitarist/drummer". In some cases ones liking of a certain artist might only depend on these over complex guitar riffs in their songs. I'm not saying it is a bad thing to be skilled playing an instrument, it's a good feature in a bands music. But the difficult guitar riffs itself doesn't make a good song. A very simple tone might sound spectacular if the performance is set right. Yet a very difficult and complex one might sound just horrible.

Oh, and ridiculously fast guitar shred or drum blasting doesn't fit in the definition of "skill".

Not to mention instrumental solos in songs. It seems it has became some sort of a standard for every damn song to have a guitar solo. Sometimes a solo might be a good way to identify or promote a certain song, but having a solo in every song on an album is overdoing it. Very often I've come across an album where the solos doesn't have any variety, causing all the songs remind each other and making the whole album repeatitive and boring. Even worse when the solo doesn't fit the actual song at all! Completely ruined.

tldr: fast guitar shred nonsense ≠ good music, and solos must fit in the actual song!

Today I happened to visit a (metal) music related forum. I couldn't read more than a few topics before I had to close the browser to avoid losing my mind. The first topic I opened was about defining one bands music into some sub-sub-sub category of metal music, and even arguing why it does/doesn't belong there. I mean, having one word + "metal" is still tolerable definition, if you really have to use something else than just the word "metal". But having every single aspect of the bands music and objects that appear in their promo pictures to include the name of the "genre", is just stupid.

Review: Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet (Blood verses)

Alright, I'd like to start off with this album, Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet (Blood verses). Compared to the previous releases of Moonsorrw, this album had a dramatic change in the style of the band. The old "pagan referring" viking swords and armoury had practically ended into a trash can and the band took a huge (also a risky) leap forward becoming a more serious music artist. As Moonsorrows members had said that their previous album already got everything the genre has to offer, so it's necessary to make something different. I'm glad they did.

Where the previous album, "Kivenkantaja", had a very bombastic pagan metal soundscape, Verisäkeet had ditched nearly all the previous concepts and took a step towards thrash and black metal, yet still being true to the bands own description of itself "epic heathen metal".

When this album first came out in 2005, I didn't really know if I liked it or not, it definitely wasn't something I had expected, but it sure was still Moonsorrow. It probably took me a few listen-throughs to get a good image of the songs, and the album. A challenging album, with a playtime of full 70 minutes.

The first three songs work as the main emphasis of the album, by creating the atmosphere and establishing the theme, being dark, heavy and brsitly. Even the songs are quite long in comparsion, they never feel repeatitive or tiresome, rather keeping the listener interested in listening the song from the beginning to the end. I have to admit, managing to create songs like this one after another must require some serious composing skill and devotion.

The first 43 minutes of gruesome melodies passes surprisingly fast, as the song "Dark" begins to fade, it gives the listener a little time to take a breath. "Jotunheim" begins the calm section of the album, yet still reminding the listener of what he went through before, with a very strong grasp. It does well tieing up the storm of the beginning and ending it with a respective outro. There's a long silence between Jotunheim and the final song, a fully achoustic "Kaiku", which is a nice exception, giving a relived ending to the whole. There's a new day after the long night.

As a conclusion, Verisäkeet is one of those albums which you might not like at first, but later on find it being one of your favourites. In my opinion, it definitely is a very good and solid album and stands on its own position in the Moonsorrow discography, but because it is a result of a radical music style change, it has a faint experiment -type of feeling in it.

-Edit note: filled some details in the review and conclusion part.