traptunderice wrote:
Alex@MetalReviews.com wrote:
traptunderice wrote:
It's all about the whole, never simply the parts. Shit would be better off instrumental.
It actually has long instrumental sections, but when the vox come in it never bothers me. Then, without vox, how would you provide a lyrical message, an important part in the case of this album?
Lyrical messages are a very crass way of promoting a message. It's like the Christian strand of death metal. Death metal carries with it a brutality that is very opposed to Christian morality that can't be overcome by simply adding in lyrics. The sound itself carries with it a message. If Christian metal wanted to actually promote a Christian message, a better way to do it than with inane lyrics is to actually write grand, triumphant music that seeks to express the message they are trying to promote of God's supposed glory. That's why I think Panopticon's use of folk is so great. It does a lot of work to juxtapose such raw black metal to the serene bluegrass.
Back to Dawnbringer, if they have an image they want to create or a story to tell then do it through the music itself. Imagine Feg's Traveler minus the lyrics. Yeah, you won't know it's about genetic manipulation of a species of man-wolves but you will get the vibe of grandeur that surrounds the pinnacle of the story around the unleashing of genocidal spores and you'll get that vibe of being a smuggler on the run through the gallops on High Passage-Low Passage. Or so I would believe. I don't know Dawnbringer's story, but in creating music, I understand that each element has its positive and negatives, but some negatives harm more than they help. And amazing albums have no negatives. Like Reign in Blood. Which is why this is not Reign in Blood. I think I made a point somewhere in these paragraphs, but I'm really just tired of this trend of dissecting music and listening to things for certain elements. It's not enough for me anymore to just find good riffs. I could do that all fucking day. They need to be bolstered with substance and the song has to be great throughout.
Perhaps I should not have said "message", but instead used the word "concept". Take your Traveller example. Sure enough, you can explain what you feel while listening to that Feg's album because now subconsciously you know what the concept behind it is. Isn't that true? That is why to comprehend the concept behind Into the Lair of the Sun God (pls read the review what it is, pretty interesting actually), one does need lyrics. And if there are lyrics, they have to be sung, whether we want it or not. So then there will be an issue of the vocals - and there people are free not to like them, and say that the overall album is somehow diminished from the way vox are here. That certainly could be true, but not for me.
TO make our experiment pure, let me give you an album sung in Russian or Ukrainian, so I would know what it is about, and you won't. Let's assume that the music style jives with the lyrics. You tell me then what the album is about, just based on the music, and I will tell you if you are right. Gotta pick something obscure, so you don't know it.
Oh, and BTW, never I said this was a masterpiece, so trying to elevate the comparison to all-time classics is not quite where I was taking it.
(the album NR never topped in my humble opinion), but before I hire Anders I put him through the rigor of an interview to see if he shares my company's vision. Are we after making our product "prettier" or more polished, and whether we will be gaining wider customer base at the expense of deviating from the original charter. The charter of the DB, if I may venture a guess without ever speaking to Professor Black, is to create a music he likes and respects, not to grow DB into a bigger, better, more polished band with broader appeal. (which Anders Zackrisson could have helped with, man, you are making me go and dig out that CD for my tomorrow's ride to work 