What a way to start our Book Club But With Music. Jacqueline is so good, like when the guitar starts I was like "damn". The lyrics, while simple, are nice "It's always better on holiday, so much better on holiday...". Tell Her Tonight, however, is pretty mid and annoying: the lyrics, his singing, everthing. The lyrics throughout the album aren't great, Ferdinand just wrote a few not-very-meaningful verses and repeated them throughout the songs, they aren't very poetic. Then there's The Dark Of The Matinée, which starts with the lady undressing him and then the "sexy" (for lack of a better word) stops and he begins yapping about academia, like, the helly? Michael is gay, right? And in 40' are the lyrics about a guy face down in a body of water, drowning?
I really like how they use their voice as an instrument, I don't know if you could call it a capella. Jesus Saves is quite a nice song, thing is, until I read the lyrics, I always heard "chocolate Jesus saves" when she says "shop where Jesus saves" (it seems I'm the only one who heard this, Sara and Manuel laughed at (with) me :( because of it). We Never Close Our Eyes is mid. Salvation is up there with Sick Love as one of my favs from this album. Baby Blue is mid, like, meh. Sick Love's dum dum duUuU is soooo nice, I don't care what Manuel says, peak song. The piano in the last minute of Girl Like You is nice. (You've probably noticed by literary and musical capacity for describing songs isn't exactly top notch). The intro for Goodbye and its lyrics are nice. I like the line "You talk a lot of shit my friend", like how she sings it and stuff. Half A Mind (Dreamer Forever): ok, so this is where the album starts to flop, the distorted buzz at the start is kinda cool, and despite not getting the meaning, I like the "The right man could be anyone; As long as he's prepared to pay; Every generation; They must kill themselves in their own way", but bro the constant repetition of the line "dreamer, forever" is just tiring. And then Sleepwalking Life and Halfway Home are just meh.
So this is my first turn for the club, the other two were Manuel's and Sara's, respectively. I had never really listened to classical music apart from Studio Ghibli soundtracks, so this was quite the surprise - not a surprise per se, but oh well. The riff in Hush and Ian Gilligan's naa nana naa nanana nana naaaa is incredibly good. In Wring That Neck I like the opening and the sudden cuts to silence with the different instruments. The piano solo at 7min with the drums joining in at 7:30 is nice. Then the guitar at 10min is very good (I asked Sara if it was tricky to do and she was like 🙂↕️). I find it funny how the crowd starts applauding in the middle of it. And then the guy plays jingle bells right before 12min. Child In Time is my favourite song without the orchestra, the vocals and the lyrics are veeery nice (here I am again using "nice" to describe everthing); it gets especially good around 3min in.
Now let's tackle the bit with both Group and Orchestra. It's interesting (kid you not, I was gonna say "nice" again) how in each movement, the Group and the Orchestra blend more, they start off in I Moderato - Alegro as separate units, and then in III Vivace - Presto there's a certain synergy to it. In the first movement, the nice, soft intro is... nice. Then I like the wind instruments playing the same succession of notes but in different ways (Sara could probably explain this better in her bit). Minute 7 is cool with the wind instruments and then the entry of the guitar, and then at 17min we have the alternating Group and Orchestra instruments, which I found very on fleek (had to resort to this now ancient slang so as not to say the overused "nice", I swear it's not for the memes, I actually cannot think of other adjectives. I could use the excuse that it's 01:23 at the time of writing, but that'd just be falsely attributing the cause. Anyway, too much off-topic yapping). Gilligan's voice shines once again in Movement II Andante, with the guitar and keyboard around 12:50 being quite impactful (I'd say the French épatant would go well here). I think it'd be better (as in funnier) if I just copy-paste part of my notes for III Vivace - Presto: Holy start 🤯; Holy drums; Bro, the drums at 2:05 then the guitar 🤯; Then the guitar snippet at 2:50; dum dum dum dum of unkown instrument at 2:00 (I actually don't know what I'm on about with this one); and then I go on to praise the drum solo, 10:05 and the ending. And to end this review full of insights into my thought process while writing, we have Parts Of The Concerto's Third Movement, with the cool cowbell, the string instrument at 2min and a nice-sounding 3:04. And whatever the high-pitched thing at 3:50 is, it sounds great.
Call me uncultured or whatever, but I had never listened to King Crimson before, I only recognized the album cover of In The Court Of The Crimson King because I had seen it on Wplace, and I didn't even know whose album it was. So yea, the dark and ominous album that goes by the name of Red was my introduction to this progressive rock band. Overall, I liked it, it's decent, despite not being fond of two fifths of the album (we'll get to that in a moment). To me, what really shines in this album are not only John Wetton's vocals, but also how the band works with wind instruments (we can hear saxophones, an oboe and a cornet) to create a unique and amazing sound.
The first song on the album is the instrumental Red, which sets the ominous tone for the rest of the tracks with its nice riffs. These, however, get repetitive and I believe the song could've been halved without losing anything. It's not that I'm against long songs, I did choose Concerto For Group And Orchestra after all, with 19min tracks, but I just got a bit tired of Red. I find it would be a suitable video game soundtrack for a boss fight. In Fallen Angel, the introductory instruments continue with the dark tone of Red, only to cut to Wetton's calm and somewhat lamenting voice, accompanied by soft drums and guitar. Then the electric guitar comes back in, and I adore how the words \"fallen angel\" are sung, but the real surprise comes with the first notes of the trumpet, which sounds great throughout the song. The third track of the album is One More Red Nightmare, which opens with some nice guitar and drums and follows through to Wetton singing with a touch of attitude and swagger about his unfortunate experience on a flight. Whatever the weird (and wet?) clapping sound is, it's pretty cool, and it just gets so much better with the saxophone alongside it. Then there's Providence, the other fifth of Red that didn't click with me. It's an improvised track, and that deserves merit, to be able to create a song without planning it. I, however, feel that improvs are cool if you're a fan of the band (give me a Jack White improv or jam session and I'll be all over it), but not I don't think they're great as a main track on an album, leave it for deluxe editions. That being said, it does have some nice bits such as the soft drums and the guitar riffs. Next on the list is Starless, another banger, which should've actually come out as part of their previous album Starless and Bible Black, but they thought it would be ahead of its time. The chill, calm first few minutes are nice. Then there's a pause in the song where the bass comes in along with a contrasting, high-pitched guitar, and this slowly develops adding more instruments along the way. The sudden saxophone is quite the surprise and the music gets much quicker, and after this they change back to the first melody, but with more instruments. The end of the song isn't as sad and gives the impression that there's a shine of hope. The following tracks are from the deluxe edition, I don't have anything to say about the live improvs Providence and Voyage To The Centre Of The Cosmos, but of the live recording of Starless I do have the complaint that throughout the song, on your right ear you can hear a bloke yapping and once you hear it, it's hard to ignore.
Yap pending, this'll be Sara's album.
