I haven't posted at all, but I've been keeping up with your list. Nice variety and great descriptions for each album.
Thanks, gotta say I thought you'd given up following this list as from what I've gathered we have quite different tastes, but hopefully you still found it interesting.
WE'RE NEARLY THERE OMG
3. SikTh – The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out, Wait For Something WildSikTh were another band I was lucky enough to discover during my early forays into metal, and this album pretty much defines the excitement that I felt as I discovered a love for this new music. After catching the video for ‘Scent of the Obscene’ on TV I was staggered by the technicality of the music, and picked up the album soon after. Little did I know that I was buying what would become my most listened-to album of all time. I’ve listened to ‘Trees…’ thousands of times but it never gets boring or stale, in fact it’s the opposite. The more I listen to this record the more I love it, and part of the reason for that is that there’s always something new to hear, some subtle sample hidden deep in the mix, or a vocal layer which I’ve never noticed before that suddenly makes itself apparent.
Musically, SikTh are INTENSE. Extraordinarily technical, the way the six members play off of each other is something I’ve never heard any other band do as well. The two guitars of Pin and Dan are mixed to the left and right channels respectively throughout the duration of the record, giving a ‘twin attack’ sort of sound. A technique they frequently employ, particularly during heavier songs, is for one member to play a staccato pattern whilst the other plays the opposite rhythm, filling in the gaps if you like. It gives the music a schizophrenic feel, something more than matched by the two vocalists Mikee and Justin. Justin is a more traditional vocalist, with a clean singing voice and a high pitched screaming voice, but Mikee is a different entity altogether. The only singer I’ve ever heard who uses as many different techniques as Mikee is Mike Patton. Wail, growls, whispers, shrieks, inward singing and others I don’t even know how to describe, Mikee uses them all, and to great effect. The way the two singers trade-off vocal parts is something else which defines SikTh’s sound. Some songs are sung entirely by one member, others will have the verses and chorus performed by different members, and sometimes Mikee and Justin sing different words, phrases and even syllables. Intense really is the only word I can find to describe this music.
But it’s not all baffling rhythms and ear-bashing noise. I mentioned in my write-up of Cosmology that there was another band which juxtapose heavy and soft moments really well on my list. SikTh are that band. The soft moments in ‘Scent…’ and ‘Wait for Something Wild,’ contain some truly beautiful music, the former with tapped notes which sound to me like pieces of heaven falling and the latter containing an amazing drum solo layered with soft synths and delicate vocals. In fact a large percentage of ‘Trees…’ is not heavy at all. I think of the album as being constructed of three different sections. There are the first four songs which are all heavy and get the album off to a barnstorming start. Then there are the two piano interludes ‘Emerson pt 1’ and part 2, tributes to their late friend of the same name. Between these interludes the pace of the album drops a lot. ‘Peep Show’ is a simpler song, almost pop like in its structure. There’s a dark and heavy cover of Nick Cave’s ‘Tupelo,’ and one of the albums highlights for me, ‘Can’t We All Dream?’ which after an abstract introduction features a stunningly beautiful and largely improvised vocal performance by Mikee, truly magical stuff. The third section of the album gets heavier again, before finishing on the spoken word poem ‘When Will The Forest Speak…?’
I love ‘Trees…’ so much that I have the artwork and a line from the poem tattooed on my arm, which may seem extreme to some but to me is a fitting tribute to an album which changed the way I listen to music. Some bands and albums go in and out of favour with me as my musical tastes develop, but I will never stop listening to and enjoying this album. It’s just too good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-BzWuc16GE2. Between the Buried and Me - ColorsFor the longest time I thought this was my favourite album. The first time I listened to this album was the single greatest musical experience I’ve ever had. Listening through headphones in bed one night, this record took me on a journey and put me in a place that I’ve never since been able to revisit. I remember when White Walls ended I just took out my headphones and sat up in bed, no longer tired. I just sat there for about an hour, thinking about where I had been. I didn’t want to watch TV or listen to anything else, because at that time I didn’t think I would ever enjoy anything as much again, and it seemed disrespectful to even try.
I still adore this record, although as it is only number two on my list you’ll realize I’ve gotten over my fear that nothing else would ever match up. The way the songs flow into each other to make one massive hour-long epic is genius, and some of the transitions are inspired. But the album flow is not just a simple movement from A to B. The songs ebb and flow, entwining ideas and sounds to create tracks that really do have almost tangible colours. The use of reference and reprise is sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious, but always done to perfection. I love how a riff or phrase that I’ve heard a hundred times can suddenly be heard in a new light when I realize that it was played half an hour earlier in a different time signature and with a different purpose within the music.
Again with reference to the album flow, I view the album as being about reconciliation. After the delicate opening moments with just piano and vocals, the way The Backtrack builds in intensity and heaviness before transitioning into A Decade of Statues, and the subsequent heaviness and anger in that song, seems to me to be a starting block for the rest of the album to resolve that anger until by the end of White Walls the theme is of about being proud of what has been accomplished, and moving on. I think this is reflected not only in the way the songs become (on average) more progressive and less heavy as the album continues, until at the end the album comes full circle with the piano outtro, but also in the lyrics, which are often confusing and vague, but at times beautiful and meaningful.
To wrap things up, as I could go on forever about the subtleties and nuances of Colors, this album has it all. Fantastic, original musicianship, great vocals both clean and harsh, great structure and songwriting, but it also has a further depth that I was lucky enough to discover on first listen. This album is beautiful, for all the blastbeats and guttural screams, there is a transcendent beauty to the songs that I’ve never heard in any other metal album. And that is why this is my favourite metal album of all time.
https://grooveshark.com/#/s/Prequel+To+The+Sequel/2pL25J?src=5