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Post by nocturn on Jan 16, 2010 18:32:57 GMT -5
First listen to TGE: What the fuck. Tenth listen to TGE: Yes. I got really angry and freaked out when I first heard the album version! I was like... what happened to the pretty keyboards! What are these disjointed electro NOISES? Is there an error on my disk? The track is malfunctioning! I got over it fairly swiftly, though  |
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Post by Ren on Jan 16, 2010 18:47:48 GMT -5
On my second listen through I made stream-of-conscious notes about my feelings for each song. They will never become a review, but maybe they'll be of interest?
"Midnight Directives" I like for its awesome transitions: the intro becomes the verse which becomes the chorus; the thick pseudo-cheesy strings change all-a-sudden into accented rhythmic patterns then into tremolo.
"Keep the Dog Quiet" should not make one want to dance. The melody is eerie, and the vocal track has this space around it; the instrumental accompaniment is eerie too, quiet strings, which builds into a mesh of rising patterns and then just...quits. But naturally. And that bassline which is not a traditional bassline and is handed off from bass to brass to pizzicato strings and switches from creepy-plotting to creepy-triumphant, that bassline makes me want to dance.
"Mount Alpentine" is as close as this album gets to a recit.
"Red Sun No. 5" sits where I want it to--the melody is repetitive, simple, even boring. The texture, though, is thick and foggy like the best French Pea Soup, with tonnes of bassoon.
"Lewis Takes Action" is downright gorgeous: a cloud of strings sweeps the fog away, a simple bass, a steady beat, takes us into the melody with interesting vocal doublings--and instrumentally it's alternatively empty and full, but always transparent. I can hear every colour, I smile every time the winds crescendo on that long note, I am sad every time it ends.
"The Great Elsewhere" grooves for a slow song. The scraping sound effectz sound like someone scribbled over the opening pattern, but Owen plays that game where you make a picture out of the scribbles. 'Oh hey' I think every time with this song, 'those really do belong'. And it gets faster, the bits are layered and fragmented and embellished and I can hear the initial patterns reflected and referenced in the climactic middle and when they return as they were for a moment leading into the outtro, and then they are destroyed again, flipped and turned backwards and settled to sleep. I never want to like it, but I always do.
"Oh Heartland, Up Yours!" is my favourite song on this album so far--I think the lyrics are the least convoluted; I can hear what Lewis is thinking, and the text is set so clear and the accompaniment is low flutes and muted brass and so it is a foundation of quiet tension and rebellion and portrays the sentiment of the text really well.
"Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" is so happy, so resolved: a steady beat, a repeating pattern, but with sparkling oboe and warm bassoon and then and then the strings come in and it's full and when Owen (times two) sings "As for me, I am a vector, I am muscle, I am bone" part of me gets ready, and when he sings "I'm never gonna give it to you!" I won't give it either.
"Flare Gun" I am kinda done with for a bit, but the newly orchestrated version bounces.
"E Is for Estranged" is a waltz and Owen's initial falsetto is light and see-through like the accompanying string tremolos. The line 'Haven't you heard/I am a flightless bird' Works with a capital W, and when the vocals give way to a rhythmically-faster instrumental bridge with english horn and then violin, and then the melody comes back over that, it gives the song a strong sense of form. Like...almost Rounded Binary: A, B, A1.
"Tryst With Mephistopheles" has a lot in common with "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt"--I want to sing the opening line of the latter to the intro of the former. But there is an oboe doubling the vocals, and then it becomes Very Brightly Coloured orchestrationally and I have to like it because it is a joyful song about murder.
"What Do You Think Will Happen Now?" is interesting for me because I am trying to figure out just how Owen packed so many words into one song! The answer is: layered them and "got the talking done". That's what this song is: just talking. I like the last line a lot, but apart from that I'm not gonna lie: it falls short of the rest of the album.
I like how he has stitched the songs together: one song's ending is another's beginning. I like how the whole thing is one thing is many things: simultaneously a large orchestral work and an album and a song cycle and a piece of fiction and it is gorgeous gorgeous in its entirety, in every part. There are weaknesses, I think, in the individual songs, but saying that is like saying, "look, today's gorgeous sunset is flawed by an airplane's vapour trail"--still beautiful, and it seems so ridiculous to comment on flaws when the worst song on this record is better than the best ones on many other records.
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Post by kiwiball on Jan 17, 2010 4:01:09 GMT -5
also along with the "what the fuck yes" reaction to the great elsewhere. followed closely by a "shit!" for e is for estranged
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An Amateur
Go Away
This text is personal
Posts: 337
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Post by An Amateur on Jan 17, 2010 4:11:57 GMT -5
"Oh Heartland, Up Yours!" is my favourite song on this album so far--I think the lyrics are the least convoluted; I can hear what Lewis is thinking, and the text is set so clear and the accompaniment is low flutes and muted brass and so it is a foundation of quiet tension and rebellion and portrays the sentiment of the text really well. "Flare Gun" I am kinda done with for a bit, but the newly orchestrated version bounces. I have the complete opposite perspective on both of these songs. When I heard Oh Heartland, Up Yours from the symphony Nova Scotia recordings, I was hypnotized by those two alternating chords booming from the orchestra. Hearing an electric bass repeat two notes for most of the song just isn't as interesting to me. It's the only song on the album I ever feel like skipping. Flare Gun on the other hand is so much more exciting. I didn't expect it to impress me as much as it did, since I had already heard it in so many forms before, but it's the most organic sounding piece on the album. Whereas the rest of the songs follow a very static and constant rythm, Flare Gun jumps in and out of tempo, throwing you off balance. It's like this short burst of energy before the end of the album, a wild beast among speedy robots. |
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Post by jules on Jan 17, 2010 6:49:37 GMT -5
"Oh Heartland, Up Yours!" is my favourite song on this album so far--I think the lyrics are the least convoluted; I can hear what Lewis is thinking, and the text is set so clear and the accompaniment is low flutes and muted brass and so it is a foundation of quiet tension and rebellion and portrays the sentiment of the text really well. "Flare Gun" I am kinda done with for a bit, but the newly orchestrated version bounces. I have the complete opposite perspective on both of these songs. When I heard Oh Heartland, Up Yours from the symphony Nova Scotia recordings, I was hypnotized by those two alternating chords booming from the orchestra. Hearing an electric bass repeat two notes for most of the song just isn't as interesting to me. It's the only song on the album I ever feel like skipping. Flare Gun on the other hand is so much more exciting. I didn't expect it to impress me as much as it did, since I had already heard it in so many forms before, but it's the most organic sounding piece on the album. Whereas the rest of the songs follow a very static and constant rythm, Flare Gun jumps in and out of tempo, throwing you off balance. It's like this short burst of energy before the end of the album, a wild beast among speedy robots. Your both right and your both wrong for entirely the right reasons. |
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cmj
Tasty
Posts: 38
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Post by cmj on Jan 17, 2010 9:07:48 GMT -5
E is For Estranged, probably. But I love What Do You Think Will Happen Now?
The end of that song (and therefore the album) is my favourite bit of Owen ever.
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muz
Pretty Girl
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Post by muz on Jan 17, 2010 15:05:56 GMT -5
Has to be TGE for me just at the moment. Not only is it great but that lyric "Wrestle, let's wrestle. You can pin me to anything" will strike a chord with every gay man across the planet :-)
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2010 16:34:29 GMT -5
I think my favourite is "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt". I remember when I first heard the song when it was on the bootlegg of a show he did in Vicar St, Dublin on the 11th of December, 2007. I was amazed. Then came Heartland, and I got that exact same feeling. The whole album is incredible, but I just love how LTOHS came out. That was the first time I heard that song, at that gig. Then I got the boot and was addicted to it. Like a silly boy I probably expected the universe to explode when I first heard the album orchestra-ized version so when I didn't there was initially a momentary disappointment. I've since banished that stupid thought. Its such a thrilling song. I love how the third verse is in quotation marks in the sleeve. For some reason I really love quotation marks in songs. Second place I think is Midnight Directives, or Tryst With Mephistopheles, the latter of which I had kid of previously ignored, or at least not heard much of beforehand. A weird organic version of krautrock rhythms and kind of static tonality, and also the climax of the Heartland story line too. Brill. |
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An Amateur
Go Away
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Post by An Amateur on Jan 17, 2010 17:57:52 GMT -5
Your both right and your both wrong for entirely the right reasons. Then there's only one way to settle this.... ....Let's wrestle. |
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Post by jules on Jan 17, 2010 18:16:06 GMT -5
Your both right and your both wrong for entirely the right reasons. Then there's only one way to settle this.... ....Let's wrestle. You'd lose  |
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Post by Ren on Jan 17, 2010 18:42:56 GMT -5
It's true. I work out.
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Post by kiwiball on Jan 17, 2010 19:46:46 GMT -5
well Tristan expressed that he'd be afraid to fuck with me and i'm really quite flimsy so i'm sure you're set if you work out, ren. |
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Post by goodgreenanarchy on Jan 17, 2010 21:39:20 GMT -5
The Great Elsewhere is my favorite on Heartland and its up there with Thats When the Audience Died and The Butcher as my favorite songs by Owen. Keep the Dog Quiet and Tryst with Mephistopheles are close seconds. Heartland is probably Owen's most complete album in my opinion. Listening to his first two albums and then Heartland you can really see how he's evolved into his own.
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An Amateur
Go Away
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Post by An Amateur on Jan 17, 2010 23:36:40 GMT -5
Oh I'd definately lose. That's ok though, you can pin me to anything. |
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Post by Scarychips on Jan 17, 2010 23:41:39 GMT -5
Okay, the bit about the gay men made me laugh a lot.
And Tristan, I would've said the same thing with the same words.
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