Aanimation: The Ambiguous Wink

48%

Apparently I have a 48% chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse. Apparently the script has a 0% of displaying properly on this blog. Oh well.

My girlfriend just gave me this CD for Christmas (yeah, we exchanged presents early — I wanted to see her unwrap hers, and she wanted to see me unwrap mine, and we won’t be seeing each other on Christmas). If you don’t know the band, you’ve probably heard its main single: Truly Madly Deeply, or perhaps of its vocalist Darren Hayes (who made some succesful solo albums after the band’s breakup). It is a pretty good album, though not not my preferred style. Still, generally quite good music.

It appears that Andreas Viklund is back to making music — under the name Daleri this time. Check out his artist page to listen to a new remix of an old Lagoona tune, and to await new originals.

Astronaut Down released the cd God’s Eye this past May or June or something like that.
God’s Eye is overall an excellent album, with superb musicianship exhibited by all four of the band members. It spans a wide range of emotion, and by the time the last sharp note of Aisling’s Theme plays you’ve experienced a draining hour of music. “The Awakening” wins my creepiest song of the year award, while the ballad-like track The Dream has one of the most beautiful moments on the CD when vocal themes from many of the tracks come back at once. Into My Dream is 7:55 seconds of tension, resolving into an epic outtro to Aisling’s Theme.

Sometimes the lyrical writing on the CD at first made me think of bad emo music — but the conviction with which singer Keith Bowen sings them quickly made that thought disappear.

Overall, an excellent CD — if, at times, a bit overly complex. Stand-out tracks include The Truth Is Surfacing, The Awakening, Into the Eye, and Dying Words

EDIT: Yeah, that was a really poorly done review, wasn’t it? Anyway, 4.5 stars to Astronaut Down, keep rocking guys (and hope your new drummer works out great in the band). Can’t wait for the next CD! And I’ll try and write better reviews next time. . .

So I’ve started creating a new language for my book: Songlet. I’ll be posting random bits of grammar and whatnot for you eventually, but for now here’s a little preview:

Rwal

rwalradh khilkhim
rwalradh geltagam zö
cxa rwaldx edxalwe

As one Song
Are the Songs of the birds
And the Songs of the people

That’s about all I could translate with my 10-word lexicon. Need to invent some more words!

For those who haven’t heard of it, the band Thrice came up with the idea for a concept album based on the four classical elements: fire, water, earth, and air. They decided to come out with an EP for each of 6 songs, and then release 2 EPs at a time as a 2-disc set. In October, Fire and Water came out.

Fire is full of blistering lyrics and rhythms, with contrast of screaming choruses and intense verses. Water has its own complexities, though they are more buried under the surface (appropriately.) The only real complaint I have is that too frequently they hide Kenrue’s amazing voice under too many vocoder effects on the Water disc. But, overall, awesome album.

The lyrics are simply incredible, all telling medieval-esque tales in various form of rock and roll. The music in general is quite strong — the drumming on this CD has a smoothness that many drummers can only aspire to. As a song cycle it works very well, showing a wide range of emotion and stories all pertaining to one of the elements. I felt like the Water disc needed a bit more variety, so it was a good idea to release water and fire together (water alone would have been quite a disappointment).

It would have also been nice if they’d put them both on one disc — I understand the reasoning behind the separate discs, but (like I said), too much similarity between songs makes it a little more predictable than it needs to be.

Well worth it though (at least for me, who got it on a great sale.)

You know what’s sad? In the 5-month absence of posting on this blog, I missed its first birthday.

So let’s light some candles in hopes that this next year won’t have no posts for the majority of it. As in, that I actually keep this going. Who knows.

So, for the last night of Chanukah, my parents gave me an iTunes gift certificate. Normally I’m not much of one for iTunes (I like physical CDs), but last year I made a Christmas mix that has been one of my top-listened-to-cds, so this is cool. (And, yes, I celebrate Chanukah and Christmas. . .my mother is Jewish and my dad was raised Catholic.)

So, here’s the track-list:

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Your Guardian Angel
I never knew that Red Jumpsuit Apparatus could be really beautiful. . . but here it is, an incredibly beautiful, bittersweet song.

Godsmack - Voodoo
This is the only song by Godsmack I’ve ever heard, and is just cool in its creepiness. Watch the music video.

Nightwish - Over the Hills and Far Away
This is a live recording of Nightwish’s cover of the classic Gary Moore song. It is incredibly cool and beautiful, with awesomely played solos by Emppu and Tuomas. An energetic song from beginning to end (and incredibly tight live performance)

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Face Down
Creepy, sad, catchy, and powerful. This is an awesome song.

Nightwish - High Hopes
This is a Nightwish cover of the Pink Floyd song by the same name. Marco Hietala proves that he is one of the best singers on the planet. Simply incredible, due to his singing.

Jason Michael Carrol - Livin’ Our Love Song
There aren’t a lot of country songs I like, but this is one of them. Mostly for one line in the chorus.

Pink Floyd - High Hopes
The original version of the Nightwish cover above. Amazing songwriting, not as good singing as on the cover (I know, Pink Floyd fans will kill me), but incredible tune

Flyleaf - All Around Me
A very good song by a band I don’t normally like. Insanely catchy chorus, and a classically awesome bridge.

Santana feat. Kroeger - Into the Night
Santana proves that he is still among the awesomest musicians out there. The combination of his distinctive guitar and Kroeger’s voice makes this song amazing.

Linkin Park - Plc.4 Mie Haed
Not, actually, my favorite of their songs. I had intended to purchase My December, but got this one instead. Still a very good song by a very good band. Addicting.

Here are my top 3 albums of 2007. I will be posting a review of each of them eventually on this blog.

1.) Dark Passion Play ~ Nightwish

2.) God’s Eye ~ Astronaut Down

3.) The Alchemy Index ~ Thrice

NOTE: This list may get changed to the Top 5 or summat, if I recieve a CD for Christmas that is so awesome it deserves a place on THE LIST. But if that happens, you’ll get a review for both