Label: Cuneiform
Category: Music
Average customer rating:
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
UPC: 045775011325
EAN: 0045775011325
ASIN: B00000DAGJ
Release Date: 1998-09-08
|
|
Artist: Thinking Plague
Label: Cuneiform Category: Music Average customer rating:
Media: Audio CD Number Of Discs: 1 UPC: 045775011325 EAN: 0045775011325 ASIN: B00000DAGJ Release Date: 1998-09-08 |
In Extremis
General
| Alternative Rock
| Styles
| Music
General
| Rock
| Styles
| Music
Progressive Rock
| Progressive
| Rock
| Styles
| Music
Pop Rock
| Pop
| Styles
| Music
Progressive
| Rock
| Indie Music
| Stores
| Music
Tracks:
Similar Items:
Customer Reviews:
and when you meet the plague you will die........2004-02-15
The short songs are all essential Plague tunes -- concise, punchy, complex, and catchy, and wickedly contrapuntal, atonal, and full of inventive, complex rhythms. "Dead Silence" sounds like a myriad catchy parts assembled into an inharmonious relationship...that still manages to be captivating. "Aesthete" is convoluted math-rock a la Plague. "Behold the Man" is downright groovy (yes, Thinking Plague actually grooves), and also frighteningly dense and aggressive.
The two 14-minute epics are excellent and merely good, so somewhat mixed. "Kingdom Come" is one of my favorite Thinking Plague pieces, developing ominously for about ten minutes, finally peaking with a nasty tangle of atonal cacophony, and ending with an unsettling soundscape of apocalyptic dread. It is probably their most haunting song yet. "L'Etudes d'Organism" is a little less successful, in my opinion. It is based on motifs from past Thinking Plague masterpieces, "Organism" (from _In This Life_) and "Etude for Combo" (from _Moonsongs_). There are some great parts, but I'm ambivalent about the wacky, circus-music middle-section -- on the one hand, it doesn't seem to gel with the darker feel of the band's music in general -- on the other hand, it's twistedly fun and deranged and kinetic. The beginning is rearranged take on the piano & guitar meltdown from the beginning of "Organism". The ending is mostly an ambient flow, surprisingly haunting and unsettling after the madcap middle section. It lasts a little long but it is good (between here and the next album, _A History of Madness_, composer Mike Johnson really mastered the soundscapey stuff).
The other epic, "This Weird Wind", is about 8 or 9 minutes and rather Yes-sounding, due mostly to Bob Drake's voice, which is eerily similar to Jon Anderson. Actually it doesn't _really_ sound like Yes -- that would only be true Yes' actual musicians came from a alien bizarro version of the world in all those Roger Dean paintings. It's an eerie piece, but it seems a little out of place at times.
This seems to be the favorite Thinking Plague album, particularly among 'normal' prog fans, even though it is definitely not flonkus prog. Even saying that this is usually the number one choice, most people will still find it unpleasant, so it is not necessarily accessible. Personally I think _Moonsongs_, _In This Life_, and _A History of Madness_ are better. Still, this album is outstanding anyway you cut it (and Kerman's drumming is phenomenal), so if you enjoy the Plague you'd be a fool not to have this. They are one of the best bands ever, and everything of theirs is worth having.
Easier than"In this life",similar to G.G's "Power&the glory".......2003-02-07
Blown away!!!.......2002-07-04
my least favorite Plague album, but don't let that stop you.......2001-01-07
That said, the four shorter tracks on this album are all musically excellent and wonderfully complex, and would be absolutely fantastic if they had different arrangements. The first two, especially, hold up as some of the best songs TP has ever done, from a purely musical perspective. And although Mellotron moments abound, they're not everywhere-- the parts of the album that don't sound cheesy have a nice dark feel similar to the song "Warheads" from the band's second album, _Moonsongs_.
There are two other problems I have with this album. The more minor of the two is singer Deborah Perry, certainly a good vocalist but somewhat flat (in affect, not pitch) in comparison to previous singers Susanne Lewis or Sharon Bradford. More importantly, the long tracks on this album just don't appeal to me that much. "This Weird Wind" seems badly put together, and has a distinct Yes-like vibe that annoys me, probably as a result of Bob Drake's rather Jon-Anderson-like voice. It's also got some amazingly tacky "dark"-sounding voice alterations. "Kingdom Come", too, seems to me to go on too long. Lead guitarist and composer Mike Johnson says it requires more "passive or meditative" listening than most Plague. Fine, I guess it's just not for me.
And then there's "Les Etudes d'Organism." This takes two of my absolute favorite Plague songs, "Etude for Combo" (from _Moonsongs_) and "Organism" (from _In This Life_) and combines them into one of my least favorite. I can't say exactly what annoys me about this. Maybe the circus-music section just doesn't work for me (although I love the one at the end of "Love" on _In This Life_). Maybe it's just those damn synths. I don't know. But this song, except for maybe the first three minutes, fails to move me in any way.
Don't get me wrong, of course. The worst album by the best band is still a good album, it's just not up to their former standards. If you like Yes and King Crimson, you'll probably like this a lot more than I do. And as for my complaints about structure, I'm just obsessive, and most people probably won't even notice. So yeah, progheads trying to get into avant-prog, check this out. But if you don't like, go to _In This Life_ instead.
Music Album:
Music CD
Live in London, Vol. 2 ~ Blossom Dearie
With a Song in My Heart ~ Lew Soloff
The Chronological Sy Oliver and His Orchestra 1945-1949 ~ Sy Oliver & His Orchestra
The Complete Octet Sessions ~ Dave Brubeck
Jazz at Lincoln Center: They Came to Swing ~ Various Artists