I enjoy reading lists that aren't the usual Octa./LTL/ACoS as top 3.
In the words of Ted Moseby: “sorry, bro”
2. OctavariumWhat can I say, I’m a sucker for a fantastic track. Which is what Octavarium is, despite really testing the limits of how long a song can be before it gets a little too long. IMO, Octavarium has it just about right. The only longer song that this that I’ve ever heard and think is as great/greater is Sleeping in Traffic by Beardfish (har har).
Now, you’ll remember that I don’t like ACoS as much as most do because of its length, but I think Octavarium is a little less…tedious, for want of a better word. ACoS to me is like a few songs cobbled together that make up this big, long thing – where as Octavarium is a bit more natural, it all kind of fits together, building slowly.
If I’m to be 117.98% honest here, and I intend to be, Octavarium was my first “release” DT album (in that I became a DT fan
just after it was released), and I had always been a bit adverse to the idea of listening to the title track because of its length. I actually avoided it for a few months, afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to find the time to sit down and really listen listen to it. Didn’t help that my bro kept telling me “ZOMG DOOD THIS IS THE GREATEST SONG EVER”…
Actually, funny story about Octavarium (the album) and my first listen (I’ve foot noted it for those who don’t want a dose of Cool Story, Bro)^.
Octavarium, the track, is blindingly brilliant from 0:00 right through to 23:57, a journey of pure musical bliss that takes you on some massive highs and some equally massive lows (well, technically they are inversely massive I guess). Its really tough to pick out any highlights, the whole thing is a highlight.
If I had to, it would be the “Intervals” passage – an instance of musical bliss not seen since the early days and not yet captured since (although, I’d put parts of Breaking All Illusions in this upper echelon of epicness). The Wizard-ry which opens the track is just so fitting and creates this real sense of, how do you say, wonder and mystique; its truly unique and, like Surrounded, something I hope never gets touched again. It actually inspired me to give synthesisers a try, as in the pad-style midi synths (I failed, miserably). Cap’ans vocal performance, along with the melodies, really tell the story in a way that manages to simultaneously immerse you in the perverse experiment but still give the feeling that you're on the outside looking in.
JPs “Razors Edge” performance ranks, in my humble, most likely ill informed opinion, as one of the great instances of guitarmanship ever in recorded history – just brimming with emotion with that subtle dose of pomp that we’ve all come to worship him for over the years. Just thought I’d highlight that one separately.
The beats in the track do their job to perfection (I’m talking about MP and JM here); at the back most of the time but up front when they need to be. A special note, again, to the “Intervals” section – just magical.
In fact, magical is probably the best superlative I can use to describe Octavarium. Purely magical.
So, why not number one? All will be revealed, tomorrow
^I picked Octavarium up on a Friday before I went down south to visit my dad. On that Friday night me, my bro, my dad and my uncle went crabbing in an estuary south of Mandurah – me being the chicken shit I was at the time was like ‘hells no I’m not going in that dirty water with dem crabs’. I guess the real reason was because I wanted to have about an hour, by myself, in my dads car with an awesome stereo system to listen to this new album by this new band that I thought was really rad. Anyway, I chucked it on, got through the The Root of All Evil and The Answer Lies Within Came On. So I’m just chillin’, minding my own business, when suddenly, this huge fucking meteorite flies over my head. No joke, a fucking bright blue, massive, glowing hunk of space rock zoomed over my head and into the horizon. I was scared shitless, thinking that the world was gonna end, or I was at least about to be hit by a sonic boom or something (I was young remember). Next thing I know, the crab party come running back in, all freaked out, my younger bro basically crying and we just sat and waited. And waited. And waited. Fortunately, nothing happened. We found out later that it was indeed a meteorite that splashed into the ocean about 10kms from the beach which was just over the hill from where we were – we probably got the best view of this thing entering the atmosphere and hitting the water; intense! It was by far the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life – the whole sky went this bright, glowing blue colour with this huge white ball flying through it; when I say huge I mean like it took about a quarter of my vision. Ofcourse, the object itself wasn’t that big, or we’d all be dead, but the glow around it. It was magical, probably the only way to describe it.
Topic: Official DT Top 50 Thread (Riceball Up Now - starting Page 66) (Read 290759 times)