This is the fourth installment of a journal series where I rant on, recommend and explain why I like the albums. This is NOT a journal where I talk about my favorite albums, rather a journal where I talk about some amazingly atmospheric albums I've come across and highly recommend. To read the previous journal
Click Here.
In difference to my previous journals who are mainly composed of albums I've found for myself, this journal will only be composed of albums that were recommended to me directly.
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13. Stendeck - "Faces"
IDM / Ambient / Industrial
The down-side of ambient is that it can at times get boring to actively listen to since not much might be happening in the music. Stendeck however, at least for me, never gets boring. The ambience is always there providing you with a nice pleasant atmosphere to dream away in. But we also have the rhythms, the industrial rhythms providing, lets say entertainment? Preventing the else pure ambient music from getting boring. Just because it has a rhythm it doesn't mean it's not boring of course and I'm not saying all stuff without rhythm is boring either. The beats are intresting and fairly complex. A hint of noise / powernoise can be found in the beats which is something I personally highly appreciate. Another element which makes this album perfect to dream away to is that the songs are weaved together, you won't get that pause in between songs instead each new song will pick up where the last left off. You might be suspecting that all the tracks sounds just about the same now. No, each track is very distinct and unique. A nominee for album of the year 2007.
Thanks to
InterSeKtion for recommending me this.
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14. 5ive - "Hesperus"
Read below
Yes the boyband. They're
friggin' GODLIKE MUSICIANS I TELL YOU. Especially Neville he has such a nice voice. LOL KK............. NOOOOOO! I'm talking about the
Sludge / Stoner Rock / Progressive Doom Metal band which, for the record, had the name first and forced the boyband to change name to
Five. 5ive reminds me of those instrumental post-rock bands what with complex song-arrangements and whatnots. Perhaps it's me misinterpreting what post-rock really is. But then post-rock doesn't really have a definition anyway. Post-metal could be a more correct label for them, but I'm not ready to dissolve my boycott of the use of that Donald Duck-label just yet.
The first time I listened to this album I thought, wow this is so smooth I really hope they don't add vocals to ruin that, which they didn't :O For that I am oh so thankful. I don't think this music would work as well as it does if it had vocals. Harsh/Screamed/Growl vocals would ruin the smoothness in no-time. Ok let's just go with clean vocals then? Well... No that would instead ruin that particular "dirty sound" which we so often find in Sludge. The sometimes (note:
!!!!SOMETIMES!!!!) a bit noisy guitars remind me of
Boris's psychedelic noisy guitars which can be found on some songs on "Smile". While the clean guitars are nice, they're not what makes this album so atmospheric, it's the darker distorted guitars. At first I thought it was the bass doing the job, but after reading about them a little I found out that
THERE IS NO BASS :O (lol I imagine
Myaxe frowning as he read that) I was liek "wut, I want that überdark sound on my guitar". The dark distorted guitar stands for the dark soundscape which can be heard throughout the whole album. The drums pleasant to listen to, sometimes they are a bit complex, which might upset people who want to be able to grasp the rhythm instantly, but it's nothing too complex really. The guitars and drums remind me of
Kyuss, especially the "Blues For the Red Sun" album. They have somewhat similar composition and sound. I find 5ive to be darker and more sludgy though.
Thanks to
Lord_Krichian for recommending me this.
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15. dälek - "Absence"
Hip-Hop / Noise
Expected metalhead reaction upon reading the genres: "LOLWUT? Hip-hop? Hip-hop sucks man, don't listen to such crap, it's not even music."
Expected hip-hopper reaction upon listening: "LOLWUT? Hip-hop? This crap isn't hip-hop, it's not even music, it's just noise."
Your expected reaction upon reading the previous: "Oh, isn't that stereotypical of an elitist to make fun of stereotypes?"
A very fair mixture of noise and hip-hop with some industrial-ish beats on that. It's still hip-hop and it's still noise. A regular close-minded hip-hopper wouldn't like this. Personally I like Dälek mostly because of the music, or the noise, whatever you want to call it. I'm not a huge fan of rap or hip-hop and the only hip-hop I regularily listen to besides this is
Sage Francis who is alternative hip-hop too I guess. The rap delivery technique is kind of dirty which goes well with the dark atmosphere of the music, the down-side of this is that it's frequently hard to tell what he is saying. After reading the lyrcs I can confirm that they are good as well. A personal favorite lyric off this album would have to be distorted prose (
read it yourself) which is also a damn good song. Hip-hop is a genre that is very rarely atmospheric, but Dälek is one of these rare hip-hop acts that actually are. If you haven't heard Dälek and is skeptic towards hip-hop you might want to check this out as it really is something else. If you dislike both hip-hop and noise maybe you just shouldn't bother though.
Thanks to
KursiveradStil for recommending me this.
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16. The Bear Quartet - "Eternity Now"
Indie Rock / Alternative
Gone indiefag? Why yes I have. I really do despise the label indie. I don't quite hate it as much as I hate the post-metal tag, though both are equally pointless and hold about as much information as a deleted wikipedia article (
Devil Doll article R.I.P. ;_; ("an underground not notable band" my ass!) the wikipedia-mods are incredibly stupid, they didn't even delete the articles on Devil Doll's discography, haha fucking dipshits). Where was I? Oh right, despite my despise I still tagged this as indie rock? Well hate me but I dunno how else to describe it. Alternative?
At least this album isn't as faggotry as their previous albums (
well, lyrically it is, but not musically (noise-influence lulz? yum yum)). I don't really listen to their earlier stuff (this is their most recent album). I do listen to "Ny Våg" (it's predecessor) from time to time but not anything earlier than that really. This album features quite a bit of pitch-altered vocals, which is intresting but might be a turn-off for some. The guitars are enjoyable too who also are very altered. What I foremostly enjoy about this album though are the drums (which also are altered) and the synths. The synths vary from noise to pleasant melodies too annoying sounds (annoyance is a good thing despite popular belief after all, you should go ahead and thank all the trolls that have annoyed you on this site right away) to ambientishness. Though this album isn't as atmospheric as the previous ones I wrote about in this journal I still thought it deserved a spot because some of the songs are really atmospheric. I guess I didn't really write much about the album itself but if you want to know more why don't you try to listen to it yourself? (also fu)
Thanks to
uggabugga for recommending me this.
Thank you for reading. For further reading check out:
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
If I fooled you by coming here looking for something else, due to my excessive use of connections, I don't care.
Do leave me a comment will you? I get so lonely sometimes ;_;
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