Well, I’m crap at keeping up with things. I kind of started this blog on a whim, so you can’t really expect TOO much from me.
Anyways, some review soon, maybe on Swoon (which I was planning on doing), maybe something else, but I’ve been rather busy and distracted for awhile…
I don’t really know why I chose this album. I was kind of thinking about how I had listened to Sounds of the Universe, but hadn’t really paid attention to it. I figure in order to actually decide if I like it or not, I should listen to it rather than just have it play in the background while I do other things.
Scroll all the way to the bottom for the tl;dr version.
1. In Chains – 6:53
The beginning of this song was really neat – the first thing that came to my mind was tuning. Maybe that thought came from the fact that all of the electronic sounds were tuning to an “A” (which is what we string players tune to for one of our strings). After that, the sound kind of cuts out, like they’re ready to start an awesome album after that little bit of tuning. It starts out really quiet, and then Dave’s voice comes in.
I’ve got to say, I love his voice in this song. It’s all echoey and neat. Those interesting sounds that seemed to be “tuning” at the beginning all start to come in around here, just at sort of random points in the song. It’s not so random that it sounds bad, it sounds rather cool, actually.
There’s a middle bit where the percussion sort of cuts out, and when the electronic sounds come back in to compensate, they sound almost out of tune in a musical sort of way. I remember my first reaction was “Is this right?” But after listening a bit, it does sound right, in a quirky way.
With all of these noises, echoes, and a sort of mellowness to the entire sound, it reminded me of something off of Dark Side of the Moon (this is what I thought of – you don’t have to agree). It just has more energy than Pink Floyd normally does. The song sort of fades out – it’s the same thing repeated from earlier in the song with a sort of synth over it. I love that.
As you may have noticed, I pretty much have nothing but positive to say about this song. No really, I’m thinking on it, and there’s nothing negative I can say about it. This album is looking really good so far. I’m going to give this a 9/10 simply because if I gave it a 10/10, it would imply that it could become my favorite song, and I don’t think that it would, to be honest. No one knows what I’m on about here, but I know exactly what I’m doing.
2. Hole to Feed – 3:59
So, Depeche Mode know how to start off their songs. This one starts off with something that kind of reminded me of knocking. Then these synths start going over it, and all I can think about is aliens all of a sudden. Like I sort of pictured a UFO landing on my front lawn while someone knocks on the door. I don’t know either.
I was surprised by how deep Dave’s voice was at the start of the song. I don’t know why, really. Just kind of different all of a sudden. The guitar is an interesting but nice addition to the song. All of the slides are really neat. I don’t really play guitar, so I don’t know the technical term for it and I can’t be bothered figuring it out. The harmonies over his voice match up in a sort of eerie way.
The chorus (or what I assume is the chorus) has kind of an arpeggiated guitar bit, which is an interesting change all of a sudden. The percussion is still going as an undertone, but it’s sort of like it’s not there. I didn’t really notice it until I went back and listened for it. I really like the drums in this song actually.
There seems to be two guitars in the second verse, one doing a kind of offbeat rhythm, while the other is still doing the slides. The vocals sound kind of distorted and echoed. DM certainly like their echoes. They also like their electronic sounds, which continue throughout this song as well. They’re sort of short, quick, and frantic in this song though.
I hear what sounds like piano in the background of one of the choruses (maybe even all of them). I don’t think I’ve mentioned how much I love piano. Pretty much anything that incorp0rates piano, I automatically love. I don’t know why, it’s just a weakness of mine. I know all of these synths are probably done with some form of keyboard, but just flat out piano is what really fascinates me.
The song ends with sort of a feedback sound and what reminds me of a glockenspiel or something similar to it. The song just sort of ends, which I love.
This album so far has been nothing but LOVE LOVE LOVE, Maybe I’ll calm down in a bit. Back to this song, I’m probably going to give it a 10/10. I can really see myself getting into this song if I listen to it more. Every single harmony, every single note is just really interesting.
3. Wrong – 3:14
Before I start actually reviewing this song, I would just like to say how much 3:14 reminds me of 3.14159…
This is essentially the song that got me “into” Depeche Mode (if you can call it that). I remember hearing this and basically saying. “This is so good.” I’ve also been meaning to count the number of times they say “wrong”, but never got down to it.
The song starts off with a kind of spacey synth, with shouts of “WRONG!” Kind of a boring way to start a song compared to the others I’ve reviewed so far, but it’s really kind of catching. Maybe it’s my attachment to the song, but it makes me want to listen to it.
The vocals are sort of like rap in a way, but sung instead of said, and slower than most raps are. They’re going over what sounds like a heavily distorted bass or maybe a neat synth sound. I’m not quite sure to be honest.
The chorus has a lot of beepy synths over it and repeats the “WRONG!” bit from the beginning. It’s kind of a boring chorus. At least it gets more interesting towards the end when there’s loads of vocal layering. But these synths that continue on make the interesting verses really quite interesting, adding a bit of intensity that the song definitely needed at that point in time.
After the second chorus, everything sort of drops out, leaving these quiet beeping synths repeating the main instrumental line of the song. I quite like this part actually. I don’t know what it is about sudden changes in dynamics, but I always seem to like them quite a bit, as you may have noticed in the previous song reviews.
The vocal layering towards the end of the song is probably my favorite bit. It’s got the intense synths going, the “WRONG!”s accompanied by the lyrics to the first verse as well as a new addition introduced in the second to last chorus – “Too loooooooong”. When I was trying to count the number of “wrong”s there were in the song, this is where I got lost.
In comparison to the first two songs, I kind of hated on this song a bit. Maybe because I’ve heard it so many times. It used to be the 2nd most played song on my iPod. I’m going to give this song an 8/10 – even though it was one of my favorites, there are a few things to this song that could improve.
4. Fragile Tension -4:09
Even if I didn’t really like this song, I’ve got to say, DM knows how to end a song. The distorted drums and beeping noises towards the end are quite an interesting ending to the song. If you get a chance, go listen to The Gallery by Muse, because that’s the first thing I thought of that was slightly similar to that neat ending.
At first I thought the song had a lot of promise – I mean, it started off completely electronic with distorted drums in the background. I do have a soft spot for electronic stuff. The drums clear up a little bit into the song. After a few beats, there’s this really neat guitar sound. I can’t quite describe it. It sounds a bit like a keyboard trying to imitate a guitar, but I just have a feeling it’s not that. The vocals, when they come in, sound distant and dreamlike somehow.
The only problem is that it stays like this the whole song. I mean, at first I was thinking “Okay, this will be cool. It kind of reminds me of Lucid Dreams (Franz Ferdinand).” But Lucid Dreams at least changes up a little bit. Maybe it’s such a short song that they can’t incorporate all they have going on in that song, but I dunno, it would seem that they could be at least a little creative.
Although, I take that back, there’s one quiet little interlude with just some slowly arpeggiated synths. But after it, it goes right back into the main part of the song. I wish it would have continued with it, because I like that little change there. Ah well.
I’m gonna give this one a 6/10. I mean, I didn’t hate it. But I had such high hopes with those first 2 songs, it’s kind of going downhill now. Oh well, maybe the next song will fix it.
5. Little Soul – 3:31
This song is just wow. I’ve decided that if you could put the situation of “being haunted” into music, this is exactly what it would sound like. The entire thing has quirky percussion, the most disturbing synths, and just kind of…surrounding (for lack of a better word) vocals. I mean, it’s simply stunning.
It starts out with what sounds like keyboard electronic drums. I wasn’t really expecting anything much until I heard the synths, which basically sound like a choir following you around and making everything creepier. My expectations went up a bit. Then Dave started singing.
My immediate reaction was essentially “OH MY GOD”. I mean, it’s like there’s these creepy ghosts surrounding you and singing this odd tune, that somehow fits perfectly with that choir that’s following you and those weird noises that you hear when you’re alone (the percussion I mentioned earlier). It’s so echoey and distant yet again. Like if music was tangible and you tried to reach out and touch (olol punz) the vocals, they’d be slightly out of reach. If you stepped closer, they’d get farther away.
This entire song is so odd and strange, you’re just not sure what’s going to come next. It doesn’t need to change as much as the last one. I just went back and listened to a snippet of it – I was listening to the verses and going “Yeah…what’s next?” and then the song changed completely. It’s so good.
I’m going to give this a 10/10. It’s perfect. I love it. End song review.
6. In Sympathy – 4:55
I didn’t really like this one either. I liked it more than Fragile Tension though. I suppose I’m only going to be let down after the awesome of Little Soul. Again, the beginning was pretty cool. With DM, I’m beginning to expect this. It’s kind of interesting drums with these rolled chords that sound like they’re played on a really distorted harpsichord.
It’s quite a simple song. The verse is kind of heavy bass with light electronic sounds that just kind of remind me of little lights. The vocals are kind of quirky. Everything about this album is weird in its own little way I guess though.
The thing about it is it just doesn’t change that much. You’re listening to the song and thinking “Yeah, this is pretty simple.” You want it to pick up, but it just never happens. I mean, I don’t think I could even discern the chorus and the verses (if there was any difference, I probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway). I kind of just wanted this song to end.
On the plus side though, I’ve got a nice description for it. It’s like you’re walking through a forest at night. You know it’s completely empty and nothing’s going to attack you. That’s probably why it’s so boring. I mean, the song is eerie (which is the forest at night bit), but it never changes (which is the completely empty bit).
I can only give this song a 7/10. Like I said, I liked it better than Fragile Tension, but that’s not enough to get it into the “really good” range. It’ll stay in the averages.
7. Peace – 4:29
I think this time I described the song as “What would happen if Lady Gaga covered Guiding Light (Muse), changed the lyrics, and got a guy to sing.” The beginning of the song definitely made me think of her right away, maybe because I’ve been addicted to her music this entire week. But anyways. It starts off really electronic and then completely changes to this sort of church choir sounding bit with arpeggiated chords on light synths.
I don’t know why I didn’t think this song was boring. I’m quite partial to arpeggiated things, and I suppose that’s probably the root of it. And even though it’s just the same slightly boring lyrics for the chorus over and over again, I kind of like the anti-harmony harmony. If that makes sense. It kind of reminds me of Enjoy the Silence.
The verses are almost completely different than the choruses. They have that similar heavy synth thing going on. But instead of the vocals going up each time, they descend in tone. Another thing I really like is the pre-chorus, which sounds like it almost doesn’t belong in the song. Right before it goes back to the main chorus, he hits this C, which is just sort of brilliant in a way I can’t describe.
I think I’m about halfway between deciding whether I like this song or not. I mean, the chorus isn’t that great apart from the broken synthesized chords. But besides that, there are some great things going on this song. This song might have been better if it were a little bit shorter. I’m going to give this a 7/10 because it’s lovely, but not as great as it could be.
8. Come Back – 5:16
I thought this song had a rather interesting beginning, but then it began to continue throughout the entire song. For some reason, I didn’t mind it in this case. Maybe what they were doing was interesting enough that it could have continued without issue. With all of the synths going throughout this instrumental, you could compare it to sort of a hypnotic 80s song with a rhythm that’s almost like rap.
The vocals about halfway through the song are rather interesting. I think they’re just saying the title slower and dragging it out longer, but I dunno. Mixed up with the main vocal line, it sounds kind of interesting.
Maybe I didn’t mind the fact that it didn’t change. I don’t think that it really needed to change – you aren’t really expecting anything different to happen once his voice come’s in after the rather interesting beginning.
I think with this album you don’t have a lot to expect out of it after this many songs. They all seem to have this eerie, mysterious, and hypnotic feel to them. I haven’t heard anything exceptionally different quite yet, which is why this song’s review is so short. It doesn’t really change, and it doesn’t really stand out so much compared to some of the earlier songs. I like it more than Fragile Tension still, so I’ll give it a 7/10.
9. Spacewalker – 1:53
I’m going to take back my “everything on this album is eerie” comment, at least for this song. Listening to it, it’s not really eerie, it’s just sort of nostalgic and weird. It almost resembles that famous song from Lady and the Tramp at certain points. I can just see thinking back while listening to this song. Because it’s so short and doesn’t change too much, I’ll leave it at that and give it an 8/10. It wouldn’t be a song that I’d probably like a lot or consider one of my favorites, but it’s definitely interesting.
10. Perfect – 4:33
The beginning kind of starts off with an eighth-note synth – a cool-sounding one at that. I was a bit skeptical that this song didn’t have promise with a beginning like that. Then, more synths came in and introduced a sort of anti-harmony harmony, if that makes sense. I’ve said this before – notes not going together well, but somehow they work perfectly.
The verses are slightly eerie, with the almost wrong harmonies in the synths, slightly distorted vocals, and descending vocal line. But at the same time, it’s not creepy at all. This entire song is rather peaceful.
The chorus comes in and kind of ruins the feel that the verses set up, but in almost a good way. It’s still serene and quiet, but this turns into what sounds like a major key. Arpeggiated guitars go throughout the background. This song is really quite pretty.
Going back to the verse from a chorus, I can’t believe how much the sound changed. It had to have this big synth give the transition to the next part of the song, otherwise it would have made almost no sense.
There’s this little interlude towards the end of the song with arpeggiated synths. It’s sort of different from the rest of the song, but it really quite fits in. It’s got the same melody from the verses, but the instrumental sound is completely different from that.
The song pretty much repeats itself after that point. It’s quite a beautiful song, actually. I think that these past two songs are a sign of sort of a different album from here on. Anyways, I’m going to give this song a 9/10. While it’s pretty, I can’t really see it becoming one of my favorite songs ever.
11. Miles Away / The Truth Is – 4:15
At first I thought that the song would sort of change around the 2 minute mark. I thought that these were two different songs that would somehow transition from one to the other. But they’re actually the same song. It’s like they couldn’t agree on the name for this song, so they just gave it two. An interesting idea, definitely did not give me what I expected.
The song does have an interesting beginning that continues throughout the song. I was expecting it to kind of stop and go into something else, but instead the vocals started, and I knew nothing was going to change. But at that point I thought it was a good thing. I really quite like the vocals in this song.
The repetitive background in the song is made up for by really quirky synths and neatly harmonized vocals. With a lot of the other songs on this album, I used the word “eerie.” On this song, I would rather use “creepy”, because it’s rather like whatever it is that’s causing you fear on the other songs is rather distant, whereas here it’s quite present.
In the middle of the song it slows down for a bit. This is really where I thought that the song was going to change, but it’s still the same song. The instrumentation is just a little different. It’s got a clean sounding guitar with synths over it and only a cymbal keeping the beat.
After that it goes back into the main part of the song. I quite liked this song for some reason, so I’m going to give it a 9/10. I think it’s interesting and cool, but probably would not get anywhere near my favorites unless I listened to it a bunch more times, which could also ruin the song.
12. Jezebel – 4:42
Well this song is a nice change, even though it doesn’t change itself. It’s a fairly quiet song. It starts off interestingly enough, with synths and only a cymbal playing in the drums. But the thing is, it doesn’t do much different after that.
When the vocals come in, I started wondering if Dave was actually singing this. It sounded slightly out of tune and there was a lot of vibrato on it. I didn’t like it. Maybe that’s the style on this song, but that’s probably why this song isn’t for me.
The really cool thing about this song is that twice in the song, there’s this synth that plays that sounds sort of like a harp. I thought it was a harp solo, but when I listened closer, I found out it was actually a synth. The first time it comes up, there’s little sound effects playing over it, but the second time, there’s another synth part, which I really like. I wish the whole song would be sort of like this bit.
At any rate, because it’s not, I’m going to give it a 7/10. That one part is the only reason it’s not any lower. The album has gone kind of downhill, and I’m expecting some sort of closure with the last song. Hopefully, it’s a good kind of closure.
13. Corrupt – 5:04 / Interlude No. 5 – 0:41
This song is just evil. I love it.
Seriously, the title being corrupt, the distortion on the vocals, the disturbing synths…it’s just pure evil. It started off quite quiet from what I remember, and I was thinking “They can’t end it like this.” And then the beat came in, and I knew that wasn’t what would happen.
It’s sort of a quirky synth-based beat. It continues throughout the song, but it’s so weird that somehow it makes it more interesting to repeat throughout. The vocals over this are sort of disturbing. There’s no nice echo or anything – it’s sort of distorted, like he’s too close to the mic. But I know it’s there for effect.
In the chorus, there’s this really strange synth that’s really quite difficult to describe. It’s sort of like someone has taken the sound of a low synth and bent it so it goes up. I dunno, but it really adds something to the song.
In the middle of the song, everything just cuts out and you’re left with vocals and synths that are simply playing chords. Every single lyric is just sort of evil and creepy. To have it stop like that and just leave him basically singing to you, “I can corrupt you” sort of just makes you want to shudder.
Towards the end of the song, there’s something that sounds like a simplistic guitar solo, which eventually has the sound messed with. The sound ascends slowly after the last note on it is hit. When the rhythm stops, this sound just descends, sort of like feed back. And that’s the end of the album.
Sort of.
You can’t really count it as a track, but Interlude No. 5 is quite awesome, so I’m going to include it. It’s basically a synthy reprise of “Wrong”, the third song on the album. I don’t know what I love about it so much – it’s just kind of quirky and weird sounding. The synths sound more open, if that makes sense. “Ooh” tends to be more of a closed sound and these synths sound make more of an “Ah” sound. In the last 15 seconds or so, a higher synth joins in, harmonizing the sound an octave or two above. It’s lovely.
With that, I’m going to give Corrupt a 10/10 because I can see myself getting absolutely obsessed with it. Everything about it is so disturbing and evil it’s sort of awesome. And because I can’t bear to do without Interlude No. 5, I’m going to give it a 5/5. It doesn’t deserve the credit of a full song, seeing it’s only 41 seconds long, but it is really quite cool.
For people who are lazy
Total Score: 112/135
Percentage: 83%
Grade: B
Would I recommend this album?
Despite the disappointment that a few of the tracks left me with, yes, I would recommend this album.
Because this picture won’t cooperate, and you probably won’t want to go all the way to properties and see the link for the full photo, here you go:
Sorry it’s not in link form, that won’t cooperate either.
Eventually, I’m going to start blogging about music here. My New Year’s Resolution is to like more music (seriously. Is that normal?). I figure if I force myself to listen to one album a week, I’m going to find things that I like or dislike. It’ll be good.
Right now, I’m trying to figure out what to start off with (I’m on a bit of a Lady Gaga craze at the moment…that doesn’t make this blog sound promising, does it?). I’ll probably be lazy and review a Muse album that I’ve listened to 1 trillion times (that doesn’t sound good either). Dunno. But right now it’s 11:15 PM, I’ve still got a bit of homework to do and probably shouldn’t be on here. I’ll work on doing something for tomorrow.
Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
Sounds of the Universe
Taylor
harmonic 