SOUNDTRACK: EAST OF THE WALL-“False Build” (2011).
Viking picked this song back in September of 2011 as his song of the week (or however often he posted then). I’d never heard of East of the Wall, despite their New Jersey pedigree. (I know I don’t know every band from New jersey, but usually by the time a band has three records out I’ve at least heard of them).
This song is just over five minutes long and the vocals don’t come in until about three an a half minutes. By the time the vocals come in, we’ve had three or four different stylistic changes. And, by the time the vocals have been with us for a minute it’s possible that there are four vocalists in the band.
It opens with some clean guitars playing an open (but slightly off) chord progression. Over that comes a slightly distorted guitar and a bass playing mostly the same notes but just enough to be notably different. Then add some drums so the song is builds very nicely. The solo gets more and more complicated and when the drums rumble in for a climactic progression…the songs shifts into a kind of loud heavy rock/almost funk. A new more angular solo plays over the funk riffs and it all works wonderfully. Then the song becomes a rapid fire snare drum metal song and that’s where the vocals kick in. I assume this is all one vocalist but who knows. For the sake of argument I’ll pretend they are all different.
The first vocalist is a screamer–hard to understand but fitting in perfectly with the now heavy riffs. He doesn’t say much before the second vocalist comes in. This section of the music is mellow and kind of prog rocky and the vocalist fist perfectly–actually crooning along with the melody. Until vocalist three comes in with a kind of cookie monster vocal which is interspersed with a different cookie monster vocalist. By the quarter to 5 moment the first vocalist comes back, and there’s more screaming until the song ends. It’s chaotic and cool and keeps you on the edge of your seat. I wonder what they’re singing about.
Wow. If I’m this exhausted writing about it, imagine how they must feel playing it. I’m going to have to check out more from them.
[READ: June 28, 2012] “Another Life”
This story is disconcerting in that the first paragraph is a page and a half long. And it works very well stylistically. The whole first paragraph concerns a man (the husband) as he returns from a party for father-in-law. He’d rather not have gone to at all, but since he is also sick and on medication, he takes the opportunity to leave early. He arrives back at the hotel and sits down to read Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. (Holy crap!). He can’t focus on the book so he decides to go down to the hotel bar (with the book) just to mix things up.
There are a few people in the room, but he sits alone at the bar. The bartender (whose name is later revealed to be April P) is very nice and chats as she serves him. She sees his book and asks what he’s reading. He’s a bit embarrassed, because she’s never heard of Rousseau. But she says that she reads everything and her favorite is Emily Dickinson. He is thrown by her choice of authors and by the fact that he can’t think of anything clever to say about Dickinson. He fumbles a bit. She remains nice but is clearly unimpressed. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 