Penderecki / 3rd Symphony etc. (Wit + National Polish Radio Sym. Orch. 1998)

After a long interval, today I pick up a CD of classical music (to notice for english readers, I have written this section already over an year in Japanese, and sometimes I picked up non rock music such as classical, tribal or even spoken word), that is a works of Penderecki who have appeared in this section most often among classical composers, if my memory serves. The fact is, hearing that Naxos label which is famous of many good classical cds in reasonable price releases various works of modern classical music, I went to the section for classical in a CD store I freaquently go, and there I found some cds of Penderecki one of which I bought.

Its first tracks are his 3rd Symphony which is one of his most recent works. This symphony is build almost along so called romantic vocablary with some more classical taste. Frequently they say that Penderecky after returning to the more traditional technique of composition is not more than a composer of second lank. However, I have different opinions and personally think at least some of his works of the period are not so bad. Even if so, as for this symphony, sometimes I felt I found some ready made expression, and these chilled me down. Some daring and effective uses of cacophonies may come from his past experiments.

Next 3 tracks are all works of experimental periods. And a gap between them and the symphony is rather schocking. These experimental tracks are not suitable for easy listening during some other works like writing reviews:-), but I will choose these tracks without pondering if someone ask me which is most exciting for me. The booklet for this CD says that Penderecki himself already at that period found that these experimental techniques are no more constructive than just destructive and decided to abandon them. But, however impolite it may be, I think he thought too vizarre thing retrospectively considering that some artists of noise or avant-garde scene in the popular field today seem to pursue nothing but what former Penderecki tried to make.

VNV Nation / Praise the Fallen

For a preparation of upcoming their show in Toronto. Comparing the situation of scenes of Metal or Techno in which the overall atomosphere and these maniacs are very serious and intense, that of Industrial is less powerful at least in Japan (I think, at least one of main reasons for that is that there is no japanese industrial artist world-widely well know. And as for reasons for this, I suppose some things. However, the more I thought of them, the more I feel I have to hate Japan (of course, the country not a band :-)). So I don't want to write about this here). However, in the north america and europe a quite big scene of industrial music is already established. And VNV Nation, who stand as least the middle standing among these artists of the scene, will come to Toronto, I was pleased to hear that. So then I tried to listen them. Already I had to repeat it frequently, but I don't know how many works they've released.

Excluding artists prone to the noise scene, one can devide the industrial scene into the artists close to Metal and those close to Electro. And this unit belongs to the latter, without doubt, for one hardly listen guitar sounds. Then everybody can easily feel the strong influence from Kraftwerk, especially on the later tracks of this album in which melodies have more important roles. I renewed the impression that Kraftwerk is the artist one cannot go through without consideration for doing something with this genre. Since I'm a big Skinny Puppy fan and too adopted to their sound making, sometimes I feel more soungs are needed in this album. But, maybe it's just a matter of taste.

Tchort / The Heavens are Showing the Glory of Tchort

What a long title!:-) And I suppose very few japanese can read their name correctly. I think this is the first album of a stoner rock band of Toronto one of whose members is my friend. To be honest, the fact a member is my friend has nothing to do with that I pick up this album today (for, if I were truly good friend of him, I would have picked up this album more earlier:-)).

Without any interest in drugs, I cannot and will not augue on a relationship between drugs and some certain genres of pop music. But even if so, in some way I can suppose what kind of music people taking drugs love to listen or play. First of all, they cannot play so fast and technical tune. So, some kind of music such as death metal or fusion is rejected, above all because listening to that kind of music easily makes them irritated and in that case they are very easy to do some visarre acts. Second, I suppose they play some repetitions of dawdling phrases without strength and intensity. I asssume the situation is something like that. Then, that kind of music must be close to "that" style, so in reality there is not so necessary connection with a certain style of music of a certain period, I think. In the first place, another main stage for drugs is so called Rave which is in a sence contrary to so called stoner.

On the other hand, different from these drug guys, I think there can be musicians happened to be close to "that" kind of music as the result from the addiction to a certain type of music belonging to a certain period. And this band is among musicians of this type, I suppose (however, whenever I meet my friend, he seems to be pretty druggy, so I'm not sure in fact:-)). I'm not sure whether if it has some positive meaning to pursue some old styles of music deliverately, but as far as a rivival of an old style, they do well without doubt.

Cemetry / Last Confessions
I happend to find this album in a clearance section of the CD store I always go, and its front cover wa so beautiful and implessive that I bought it without consideration. I know nothing about them except that they are supposed to be a german band. It seems from a discography the booklet contains that this is their fifth album if they released something from other label.

The first track is sot so fast but very cool, sounding as if some songs of Testament of their struggling period, that is "Souls of Black" and "The Ritual" period (saying this, one may wonder if I praise Cemetary or blame, but I want to praise them because, however strange it may sound, I love Testament of that period). However, tracks after that fail to satisfy me, and to make matters worse, total playing time is less than 30 minutes, so overall impression on this album is pretty weak.

In a word, soon I forget everything except the front cover and the first track.

Salem / Qaddish
Some weeks before I found and bought this album with a quite beautiful cover in the clearance section of the CD store I always go. Its title and some other things made me suppose this band came from Israel, and that is true. I don't know how many works they have created, but this is a (it is sure that this is not the only) album of doom-and-death metal band from Israel.

Comparing to a album of Kenotaph, a grind-core act from Turk, which I bought too a few months before, this album has not so many elements reminds me that they come from Israel as the case of Kenotaph. However, I can realise they are Jewishs from a song sung in Hebrew and some other things. Exept these things, neverthless, I cannot deny that in general they have not so many peciliarities other than some these Israel things.

If musicians from under-developping contry such as Israel, Turk or Greece etc. (and Japan is not an exception) try to appeal to the north america or UK, of course many big things are needed. Since every genre of popular music has at least some maniacs, if they think that applealing to these fanatics is enough, that's it. But in case if they look after something above it, the way is either to make really great things or to create something strange which ordinary musicians cannot do. Easy examples are, Loudness played some ja;anese phrases in their songs, or Sepurtura mixed some tribal elements into heavy metal things. When musicians from some minor country don't have such elements and create things just on the level and to be more the first impression they can make is only "come from ...", so they turn to be just visarre thing only for maniacs. And the problem is, we have too many musicians of this kind. I don't like this situation, but it is a real fact that I have pretty many staffs of bands from for example Slovakia, Greece and even Indonesia...

The Cure / Bloodflowers
The first things I listened to was some synth-pop and new wave things. So naturally I've listened to almost all of representative works of representative musicians in this genre. However, even I myself cannot grasp the reason, but I'd never listened to almost any song of The Cure. I don't think I was an anti or had some hostile feeling against it. Now all I can say is that there might be no luck or fortune, or that something I don't know prevented me from listening. On the other hand, strangely enough, reccently I had some lucks so that I happend to see a show of these musicians formerly unknown to me almost completely. Even without any foreknowledge, the show was really great and I truly enjoyed it. Through these history, today I was listening to the most recent album.

I don't know about the early Cure at all, but at least as for recent them, the minimum requirement is the presence of Mr. Robert Smith, so that The Cure is more similar to PIL or NIN than ordinaly rock bands. However, the strange thing is that, their overall sound even in this album doesn't sound just as the solo project of Mr. Robert with other unknown musicians. Moreover, this album has no fast tune, but doesn't make me tired, nay rather even make me think that it was necessary (by the way, the show I saw lasted almost for three hours in this fashion, so I was little bit tired). Maybe the musical persuasiveness is something like this.

Machines of Loving Grace / Gilt
I found this album at the industrial section of the CD shop I referred a few days before, and its front cover was so attractive that I bought it. I know nothing at all about them.

As for this genre, recently I've bought nothig but scums and trashs, and this album is included among them. To be honest, it was pretty before that I bought it. And after some intervals, I tried to listen it again thinking that these intervals may change my impression somehow. But the result is, I found nothing attractive in this album, and it made me nothing but to confirm that this album is after all a scum. Songs themselves, sounds of instruments, performances and above all vocals, all are not special at all. As in every other field of pop music, in this genre too too many musicians and bands just rub some characteristics of the genre. Then we must be tortured by these too much easy stuffs of too much easy pseudo musicians. If we can eradicate all these musicians of out of rank, the music scene itself can be far more exciting. "Radio station, thank you for nothing. I like this anger and I wont forget"(Gary Numan)

Muslimgauze / Coup d'etat
The X-th album of an industrial act from, I suppose, Australia.

The CD store I go frequently has a section for the industrial music, where we encounter so many (sometimes over twenty) their stuffs. And more, many of its cover are so shocking: for example, a picture of a group of women from probably civil terrorists shooting a gun, a photography of Mr. Kazzafi etc. Since these impacts have been cling on me, I bought one of these albums with a completion of stamps of a seivice card of the shop.

The whole tracks last over 72 minutes, and its totally boring. All tracks sound like some mid-east asian kinds of music, and at first listening they attract my taste, but fail to keep it. Almost all songs (exactly speaking, not 'songs' because there is no vocal at all) consist of a few basic tracks with some noises, and nothing special occurs except them.

However, it can still work as some BGM music, and thinking so it's not so bad. Neverthless, it's far from the impact of its visual artwork.

Visage / The Anvil
Too suddenly and unexpectedly, old japanese new wave fans were shocked by a news that Steve Strange was arrested for pinching femele cosmetics and a Teletubby doll:-(. Anyway, if I'm not wrong, this is the second album of his project.

Their first album sounds like a condensed extract of 80's synth pop and new wave, and although we amazed at that immoderate borrowing or even stealling or copying, at the same time that rampant mixture was pretty cool anyway. Comparing to that, this album lacks such a rampant immodesty, but doesn't achieve their originality so that sounds just sober. Especially the vocal of Steve himself sounds somewhat weak nowadays.

But anyway as always, Midge and Billy from Ultravox works well.

The Fixx / Reach the Beach
I'm regarded as a kind of wholehearted metal freak recently. However, I always feel somewhat discontented with Metal in general on the account of a variety of the sound of instrumentals, especially the guitar. If there were a band which has a massive death metal mixed with effective guitars and a lot of keyboard sound abusing sumpling, I would have been a big fan of it (or actually there is such a band already?!).

By the way, it is Mr. Jamie West-Oram, the guitarist of the Fixx, that through a process against my taste I said above became just a guitarist of one of them for me. In the period of this album, he thoughout plays with his original metalic sound as if a digital keyboard. Talking of him, everyone says about this sound and modest but hitting-the-point style of playing. However, this album make realise that his style was already completed even in the aspect of overall arrange or others.

I could understand if he would have added something to this style. However, I can hardly understand him because once he threw away that style and came to play with a wholly different style. To make matters worse, fans of this genre are so gentle that they never say something like 'Why you play such a f**king boring thing? Return to the style you have to take'. So, sadly enough, I think he shall never sreturn to this style...

Waco Jesus / The Destruction of Commercial Scum

Supposedly the first and also the last album of Waco Jesus. This album succeeded to give some 'shit' to even japanese metal heads by its making-everyone-wordless cover. (However in fact japanese people can have much more weird books and even videos much easier than north america, because in japan these things are NOT prohibited)

The reason why I said this may be the last album is, admittedly the drummer died as an other page (in Japanese) in this website tells (strangely enough, this strange cover lacks any credit about musician themselves. So I don't know his name). Anyway, R.I.P...

Well, they said that this album leaves no special impression except the front cover. However, personally I feel this album is not so bad on the whole. The main problem is, I think, the drummer quite unfortunately, because his play is sometimes so unstable that I frequently feel uneasy (I don't feel happy to write like this, since it can be the thing as in a japanese proverb "whipping the dead"). Most of their songs are not so fast as standard death metal bands, and it is not a problem at least for me. But, at least one of the main reasons for that is that the drummer couldn't keep up to fast songs, I guess.

The other thing I cannot understand is that among their lyrics I cannot find 'such' things despise of the front cover. The artwork of the front cover was just a fake or fun?....

Gorguts / Obscura
I'm their big fan since I saw their show at the Milwaukee Metalfest of this year just accidentally. I don't know how long they have worked and how many stuffs they have put out.

As for such types of music like death metal or grind core, inevitably by their nature itself it is very easy to create just the same type of sound without any special device, so that some artists make only boring duplication of one pattern sound. Alternatively, it is natural too that some clever artists try to mix another elements to this genre in order to create new type of things. And this band belongs to latter groups, I think.

As even among too many brutal death metal bands we can find some band create quite special things, within this type of music, that is so called 'technical-core' or 'progressive-death', which sounds just a total chaos of noises to ordinary people not accustomed to this, surprisingly enough, it is not difficult to find an artist who creates really original things. Even though the reason why I bacame a big fan of them is mainly their performances in the show, just by listening to this CD whithout those visual elements I can quite easily recollect them. That tells that they have some extraordinary tarents, or at least they have something I want, I suppose.

In Flames / Lunar Strain + Subterranean
Preparation for their upcoming show. However I suppose they will play there just 'Stand Ablaze' which is one of bonus trucks originally from this album. Personally, I want to see them playing 'Dead Eternity'.

Well, listening to this album after a long interval while I listen to their most recent album "Clayman" lately, besides that their performances themselves are far from steady (above all, the drum in the fourth track is so unsteady that I feel quite uneasy), I'm surprised the difference of their musical direction from that of recent works. Personally I like both periods, but I suppose there are fans who like only the earlier period and hate recent works (as Mr. Jesper himself says that he likes only Iron Maiden in its early period).

Another thing I'm surprised at is that the vocal was as it were "Dani voice", that is his voice in this album sounds very similar to that of Mr. Dani Filth. Actually, listening to this album with that fact in my mind, I feel that its main melody lines were more melodic then their recent works. Considering this, the vocal of Mr. Anders got his own style in recent works, but lose melodic aspects. Comparing to this album, the most recent "Clayman" album has much less tastes melodically, I feel. That's one of reasons why I insist that they have to play songs like 'Dead Eternity' at the upcoming show.