The Ocean-Precambrian

Over the last year or so, I've grown to prefer shorter albums over the sprawling, ambitious epics I used to favor.  Even though The Alchemy Index is my favorite work by Thrice, I choose to listen to Artist in the Ambulance or Vheissu more often simply because I don't have time for an hour and a half of elemental brilliance. More examples abound, but I think you get the picture. So when an extremely long album gets more than a few listens a year from me, it has to have made an impression.

Precambrian by the Ocean (formerly known as The Ocean Collective) is two discs long and nearly an hour and a half in length. Yet in the last year I have owned it, the album hasn't bored me once, and it continues to provide me with that thrill of discovering something new in a well-listened piece of music even after repeated listens.

Precambrian's concept alone is enough to enthrall listeners interested in intellectual music. The music is based loosely on the theoretical ages assigned to precambrian Earth by scientists, beginning with the violent Hadean age when a planetoid is theorized to have slammed into the Earth and formed the moon from the resulting rubble cloud. This is captured perfectly well by the music, an odd but extremely natural blend of sludge, post-metal, hardcore, and an indescribable flavor unique to the band. As continents rip apart and volcanic upheavals shake the globe, drop-A guitars and jagged, metallic riffs orchestrate the events. The vocals range from deathy, hardcore-tinged growls to high pitched shrieks to smooth, almost jazzy cleans. And amongst it all, little instrumental highlights pop up in the form of an occasional piano melody or string quartet, such as in the closing track Cryogenian, or the instrumental Statherian.

To say that Precambrian's music is technical would be an understatement. The band operates nearly indefinitely within odd time signatures and somehow makes every single rhythm completely unpredictable. Classical scales are used freely, and song structures are very methodically chaotic. Music of this level of technicality threatens to become immensely difficult to stomach, but Precambrian manages to make their two discs extremely entertaining. Rather than glazing over at the ever-changing sounds, the listener is sucked into the atmosphere of foreboding doom of Rhycasian, lulled into beautiful bell and chime verses, and then jolted awake by one of the most crushingly heavy interludes I have ever heard.

Despite its prehistoric concept, Precambrian's lyrics use them as metaphors for current day issues such as environmentalism and philosophy. Even though lyrics are of secondary importance to me, it's still awe-inspiring how deeply one could delve into the themes and parallelisms of the concepts behind the songs. And this really illustrates Precambrian's appeal quite well: it is an album for people who like to search every corner of their music for details, who love to understand complex themes, both musically and lyrically, and who enjoy endless replay value. Of all the supposed "metal masterpieces" lauded by metalheads everywhere, this is one of the most deserving and underappreciated examples I have heard.

Hadean: The opening track on the first disc, this violent little song shows the more straightforward but still highly technical side of Precambrian. Try to follow the rhythms in that opening riff. Just when you think you have it down, something changes to make it interesting to listen to. The abrasive shrieks of "You must pay your dues!" are a definite highlight.

http://www.mediafire.com/?x7uo6l2lxthgkg2

Ectasian: Representing the more ambitious and progressive second disc, Ectasian is a study in song structure. The enigmatic opening of strings and piano leads into a crushing yet simple B-section that almost descends into banality... until the song erupts into a technical frenzy just past the four-minute mark. The clean vocals and odd time signature of the interlude strongly evoke Tool references, and the main riff is one of the more intense moments on the album. A true masterpiece of songwriting.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jj5nsn4h7zcjh1t

maudlin of the Well-Bath

In music, as in all forms of art, there come works that cannot be analyzed or quantified as to why they are as beautiful as they are. Sometimes, even artists are baffled as to why every brushstroke or note is executed to perfection, creating something much greater than the sum of its parts. Similarly, sometimes we as consumers of art are inexplicably drawn in to a work by which we are completely swept away.

As I try to explain why maudlin of the Well's "Bath" is that work to me, I am frustrated by the fact that since I cannot explain why every second of this album moves me in this way, I am powerless to relate it to anyone else. Making the task even more frustrating is the fact that "Bath", like all of Toby Driver's works, is impossible to categorize into a genre. The opener "The Blue Ghost/Shedding Quliphoth" is like a post-rock take on a classic Genesis piece, with its otherworldly atmosphere and climactic song structure. "Bath" then oddly transitions into "They Aren't All Beautiful", which can be summarized basely as "jazz metal". What begins as a meaty death metal song with growled vocals transitions into a heavy version of Steely Dan or some other swing/jazz band.

And from there, "Bath" becomes even more difficult to place. From "Heaven and Weak"s enchantingly gorgeous classical influences, to "The Ferryman"s over the top organ intro, to the charming instrumental interludes, Toby Driver never fails to offer up variety, all the while carefully distributing different sounds so as to never become overbearing. On songwriting prowess alone, "Bath" should be lauded as one of the works of the century simply because it is more successfully eclectic than anything else I have ever heard.

But what makes "Bath" so special is not its amazing variety. Indeed, Driver's ability to transition seamlessly from crushing to frail in "Birth Pains of Astral Projection" would be meaningless if it were a detached showcase of music theory. "Bath"s real strength lies in its deep emotion, its heart-rending beauty, and its strange connection it so easily forges with the listener. Hearing "The Blue Ghost"s ethereal theme reprised by clarinet in "Girl With a Watering Can" and by guitar harmonics in "Geography" hits home in a way I cannot describe. The melancholy melody sung by female vocals in "Girl With a Watering Can" is the very embodiment of immersion, coupled with the distant electric guitar and light keyboards. And "Birth Pains of Astral Projection" is emotionally harrowing every time, with its epic climax in the middle and its glacial calm at the end, made perfect by Toby's frail singing.

In the end, it is impossible to describe how perfect "Bath" really is, right down to the mysteriously forlorn album art. This is true art at its finest, able to tap into the deepest reaches of what drives our human emotions without one mention of a break-up or of death. It's almost disturbing how effortlessly Driver connects with the listener on this album. To ignore it as much of the rest of the internet and blogging community has since its 2001 release would be depriving oneself of one of the finest works of art of the century.

My favorite song of all time:

Birth Pains of Astral Projection

An introspective rant

As many of you know, I tend to place a lot of emphasis on musical discovery. I strongly (note: strongly) feel that most of the Western world is caught up in a miserable black hole of repetition, fed constantly by a bloated and desperately flailing music industry in its death throes, and supported by a public who doesn't know any better. The conventions currently in place have been in place for a frighteningly long time, considering how fast the 90's and early 00's evolved styles even within the bounds of their creative depravity. Most music listeners in America have a single style they prefer, and most of them have only a handful of artists that they listen to on repeat.

As an avid music listener whose last.fm averages at ~20 tracks a day, I can honestly say i have never once used the repeat button. To me, listening to music is like exploring a verdant, untamed landscape, with new surprises and discoveries around every corner. To stay in one place and never move is a massive waste of enjoyment. I can't imagine how long ago I would have tired of music if I had never discovered progressive metal, or post-rock, or Toby Driver. For an album to be spun 10 times in the span of a year is a LOT for me, and is probably one of my favorites. I just don't have time to listen to anything more than that because I have eleven untouched albums to listen to.

Well, last week I attended my second Porcupine Tree concert in three months. It goes without saying that it was brilliant in every way, but that's not the point of this post. Steven Wilson & Co. taught me something last week. I have listened to all of my Porcupine Tree albums a great many times each. I know ever sound, most every word, and recognized each of the songs played live by the random electronic samples played at the beginning of all of them. Yet seeing them performed live, with such care given to detail and sound quality, made me realize that sometimes it's good to explore every aspect of an artist, or even of a song or album. Now this obviously requires music that can be explored in such detail, which can't be said about any artists currently in the top 40, but that goes without saying. Knowing a piece of music backwards, forwards, and inside out can sometimes add greatly to the enjoyment of said music. It's a special kind of enjoyment, different from the thrill of finding a new great artist. And it's one that I'm not really used to experiencing.

That being said, I would still argue that more people need to explore music rather than attain equilibrium with the music already owned. But everyone also needs those few special artists that have endless appeal, leave room for endless enjoyment, and offer the surreal live experience that Porcupine Tree does for me. Things like that are what make music what it is.