Thursday, June 30, 2005

The sigh of summer upon my return..

Certain songs are sprawling threads to the past, sometimes. We hear a particular song and are immediately reminded of the scene when we first heard it, or that special moment in life when it was playing in the background.

Sometimes, I wonder whether all this stems out of the perception of man that his life is in fact a “real” movie and afterall, it’s the soundtracks that make the movie dramatic and we are all drama queens in some way. Or that the rocker drumming it out there is just you in some different spiritual form.

I ve gotten hold of this old CD of mine, Still Life (Opeth) and immediately have been thrown into nostalgia.

Still Life was a typical Opeth album released before Blackwater Park and Deliverance (read Steven Wilson).. which wavers between progressive and death metal. Their lead (Mikael Akerfeld) exhibits everything from growling to screaming to deft vocals in a seemingly conceptual album about a girl called Melinda. There is one song called “Benighted” (which apparently every girl-friend of mine likes and every guy skips on play) where he almost passes off for any random Tom Yorke. In the same album you have “Godhead’s Lament” which has the conventional heavy metal intro and “Face of Melinda” an almost jazzy solo included soft one. This is not a review hence no song descriptions, but any one’s who’s ever heard Opeth knows what I am talking about.

Why is this album special to me? Again, stupid personal reasons.. there is always something somewhere in an album you can relate to. Or maybe, it can be as simple as an object of sentimental value.

What can I say, I am like this only (apologies to the originator)..

5 comments:

Calvin said...

i only started listening to Opeth relatively recently.. but was pleasantly surprised. despite their heavy metal sound, i really like one of their first songs.. "Windowpane" from the album 'Damnation'..

life is after all, a series of memories, and our favourite music a soundtrack to that life! :-)

sanity_sucks said...

hey!!! thanks so much for the infinityradio thingie...
havent listened to Opeth.... will look around... thanks anyways..

Self Writeous said...

OK, I aren't a huge Opeth fan, but I just downloaded "Benighted". The starting guitar piece sounds almost John Denverish to me, soothing, not maiden soothing, but soothing soothing nevertheless. Nice song, meaningful lyrics...Achcha laga :)

Disclaimer: The song was deleted after it was played a few times. We support ..errr...oppose Piracy...

Thetis said...

s!: ah.. windowpane! good choice.

iris: dont we all? dont we all!

sanitysucks: :)

hoh: of course we do, that napster.. i tell u *grits teeth and waves her fist around* :p

green: linked!

Jax said...

A woman friend of mine has totally flipped for the benighted song. I didn't think much about it, but would love to try more of Opeth