Snakes and Arrows
May. 4th, 2007 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eyelessgameReview, but no spoilers and only one stanza of quoted lyrics, because you might want to experience them for yourself... cutting anyway...
Like everything since Roll The Bones, the music is challenging and will take many listenings before I decide what I like. Orchestrated more like Test for Echo than like Vapor Trails, which I think is good (I adore Vapor Trails anyway, but one like that is enough).
The vocals still have the dissonant disharmonies (lots of augmented fourths) of their more recent stuff, and the instrumentation is still very layered and complicated. But there's a lot of little bits, here and there, that make me say 'that sounds like 2112... or Hemispheres'). Lifeson is shining on the guitar throughout.
The instrumental parts of the first song I swear have a time signature in complex numbers. Each measure has the number of beats Peart decided to put in, bearing no resemblance to the next or previous. Don't try to dance to it; you'll hurt yourself.
The lyrics may be their angriest and most powerful ever, mostly slamming superstition hard. Listen to 'Armor and Sword', 'The Way The Wind Blows', and 'Faithless'. Lots of commentary on the state of the world. As depressing and fatalistic as Grace Under Pressure, less personal but darker than Vapor Trails.
Three instrumentals. One song's lyrics are a pantoum, which is gratuitously clever.
Won't be a big commercial hit -- I don't immediately leap in enjoyment or break down and cry at any of it, like I did for Vapor Trail or Earthshine or Out Of The Cradle -- it's an intellectual pleasure. But is certainly is that.
I don't have faith in faith
I don't believe in belief
You can call me faithless
But I still cling to hope
And I believe in love
And that's faith enough for me
Like everything since Roll The Bones, the music is challenging and will take many listenings before I decide what I like. Orchestrated more like Test for Echo than like Vapor Trails, which I think is good (I adore Vapor Trails anyway, but one like that is enough).
The vocals still have the dissonant disharmonies (lots of augmented fourths) of their more recent stuff, and the instrumentation is still very layered and complicated. But there's a lot of little bits, here and there, that make me say 'that sounds like 2112... or Hemispheres'). Lifeson is shining on the guitar throughout.
The instrumental parts of the first song I swear have a time signature in complex numbers. Each measure has the number of beats Peart decided to put in, bearing no resemblance to the next or previous. Don't try to dance to it; you'll hurt yourself.
The lyrics may be their angriest and most powerful ever, mostly slamming superstition hard. Listen to 'Armor and Sword', 'The Way The Wind Blows', and 'Faithless'. Lots of commentary on the state of the world. As depressing and fatalistic as Grace Under Pressure, less personal but darker than Vapor Trails.
Three instrumentals. One song's lyrics are a pantoum, which is gratuitously clever.
Won't be a big commercial hit -- I don't immediately leap in enjoyment or break down and cry at any of it, like I did for Vapor Trail or Earthshine or Out Of The Cradle -- it's an intellectual pleasure. But is certainly is that.
I don't have faith in faith
I don't believe in belief
You can call me faithless
But I still cling to hope
And I believe in love
And that's faith enough for me
