Monthly Archives: March 2014

My iPod #251: Billy Talent – Dead Silence

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The first time I listened to the Billy Talent’s fourth album “Dead Silence” (or fifth if you include their actual first album) I was lying in bed, ready to go to sleep and wake up for school the next morning. I tried to force myself to stay awake and pay attention to it, because Billy Talent are cool and it was their brand new album, but eventually I just became too tired and fell asleep about halfway through or so. However, I did regain enough consciousness to just about listen to the last few tracks.

The song is about trying to live in a time of war, with references to ‘soldiers’, ‘machine gun fire’ and ‘bombs’ in the lyrics, and ends with the narrator supposedly saying goodbye to his partner to join the army. Possibly. But Ian’s solos, various guitar licks, Ben’s passionate vocals and the pounding rhythm section of Jon and Aaron deliver a track conveying determination and hope for the future.

There is a music-during-the-credits-for-a-film vibe that I get from this track. I imagine “Swallowed Up by the Ocean” to be the music accompanying the sad ending, whilst “Dead Silence” captures the overall mood that the film delivers. I don’t know why. That’s just me.

My iPod #250: They Might Be Giants – Dead

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“Dead” is the fifth track from They Might Be Giants’ major label debut, and third album, “Flood“.

I am at a loss of words in regards to it. There was something mesmerising about “Dead” the first time I listened to it in 2010; today it still raises that same feeling which I believe I could describe, but wouldn’t have the vocabulary to do so.

The keyboard set to ‘piano’, which is the only instrument used in the song, resembles something that would accompany a silent film from waaaay back or a parade of some sort due to its major key and marching tempo. It is Linnell’s depressing lyrics about not living life to the full, having regrets and people celebrating somebody’s death that puts things into perspective. Happy music with sad lyrics is a thing that the band is known for, but this may be the one that really gets to me.

It is beautiful. A real highlight from “Flood”.

My iPod #249: Nine Black Alps – Daytime Habit

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“Daytime Habit” is a song recorded by Nine Black Alps whilst recording their second album “Love/Hate“. It ended up as a B-Side to the second single released “Bitter End”. (It is a big problem that none of Nine Black Alps’ official music videos are on YouTube; you’ll have to look for that song on your own).

I heard the track for the first time when browsing the group’s website. On there you can listen to “Everything Is”, “Love/Hate”, their B-Sides and a few of their old demos. I’ve said before that I do not have as much ‘love’ for their second album as much as I do for the one that preceded it and the ones that followed. If I could find the tweet I would also show you that the band posted that they wished they had recorded it better.* There was nothing wrong with the songs, I have two in particular that I think are very good, but it was mild and soft compared to “Everything Is” – it missed that cutting edge and the large front which the aforementioned album had.

“Daytime Habit” however is quite different. It has that glaring and menacing tone reminiscent of some tracks from “Everything Is”, but still has the close and tight sound of “Love/Hate”. It is an awesome song, and I believe if this and the many other B-Sides that were recorded during that period were actually put on the record I would have liked it a lot more. But that’s how it is I suppose.

Whilst on the topic of Nine Black Alps, THEY HAVE A NEW ALBUM COMING OUT. APRIL 21ST.  I’m on it.

They unveiled a song from it already. Listen to the newer one.

* I found the tweet.

My iPod #248: The Beatles – A Day in the Life

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“A Day in the Life” is the grand finale of The Beatles influential 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Many consider this to be the greatest song the group did, and see it as the pinnacle of the experimentation the four guys had been undertaking during the mid 60s.

2007 was its 40th anniversary, and it was of an immense deal that the cast of Eastenders did a cringeworthy tribute of it for Comic Relief (take some time to think before you go to this) and a whole bunch of other bands (from Stereophonics to The Fray) got together to do a cover album as a tribute too. But it was two years later in 2009, when I first listened to the album and therefore the song. I did not think that it was worth all that fuss. I found out that it was. It’s still not my favourite of theirs though.

In terms of the track… I think I was looked at its article on Wikipedia one time (God knows why) and the overwhelming detail it listed about “A Day” – its background, the dates it was recorded on, the crescendos of the brass, the combination of Lennon and McCartney’s separate song ideas, the almighty piano chord at the end – it made me think I was missing out on a song of epic proportions. I had to listen to it.

Funnily enough, I didn’t care for it so much the first time. I was thirteen. This opinion has changed. It is one of the greatest album closers ever.

My iPod #247: Soundgarden – The Day I Tried to Live

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“The Day I Tried to Live” is a track, and also was a single, from Soundgarden’s album “Superunknown”, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The band plan to reissue the whole album along with b-sides, outtakes and some cool t-shirts. You can pre-order the bundle here!

The song is another one of those which I heard for the first time when its video (above) appeared on MTV2. I liked it from that moment on. The descending bass riff at the beginning and its weird time signature (it changes from 7/4 to 4/4 throughout) was what caught my attention. The song also showed me how amazing Chris Cornell actually is as a vocalist. “Cochise”, “Black Hole Sun”, “Original Fire” – all those sung by him were some tracks that I’d seen on the TV before “The Day”, but they never exhibited the range the man possesses. At some point in “The Day”, Cornell’s sings in a low register before screaming like a banshee in a split second. All in what is probably one take too. It is incredible.

Apparently, people have taken this track to be something of a suicide kind of thing, but Cornell stated that it is simply about getting out of the house and doing normal things instead of being a recluse. It is meant to be optimistic. He said so here almost twenty years ago. I will continue to listen to it with that mindset.