(instrumetal)

Explosions in the Sky- Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever

Temporary Residence; 2001

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I have a very short attention span. Case in point: as I was driving home from work today, I was shocked at how good the music coming from my car's speakers was. Waves of sound, sort of epic, guitar overlapping guitar all covered up with interesting drum patterns, and though it pulsed and pushed like, well, something epic, it still somehow maintained a sort of contained-within-a-room intimacy. The chords, the strumming, the playing was epic, the production (mostly on the dry drums) was very intimate. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was big like Hum, though less produced, only no tired, bored singing. In fact, no singing at all. That’s when I remembered that it was one of the few instrumental (instrumetal?) albums that I own, a nice little package from Explosions in the Sky called Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever - quite a wordy title for a disc with no words.

The title captures a seemingly large amount of grandeur. I suppose it’s easier to maintain such grandeur when there’s no over-the-top indie lyrics to pry too hard at the heartstrings, leaving nothing but emotional mush. I’m sure that’s where this band would be heading if there were in fact words, but there aren’t, so they aren’t. Though, in this world of seemingly endlessly available new (free) music, would adding some vocals really hurt them?

I know it’s old-fashioned, but I just think modern music is better with vocals – it’s a hook. It’s traditionally the main conveyor of melody, which is key to music, at least in most cases. Of course there are some instrumental performers out there who convey melodies through instruments (Satriani comes to mind, and I recall selling Surfing With the Alien on Amazon.com about a month ago), but for the most part instrumental bands stick to traditional rock compositional styles – waves of guitar sweeping over drums on a much weaker yet requisite foundation of bass – with no real replacement for melodic conveyance other than perhaps slightly more aggressive rhythms for lack of fear of upstaging vocals. That’s instrumental music, and that’s Explosions in the Sky.

I had a philosophy professor in college who suggested that music – all music – was helpless to convey specific meaning without the use of signifiers (that’s words, allusions to other works, and instantly recognizeable sounds that recall our automatically programmed emotional reactions, say a baby crying or a school bell or a buzzing alarm clock). He said, more or less, that no song could convey a real detectable story without words – only general feelings. He was totally right. The song titles on this album might tell a story, but without the aid of liner notes, the songs themselves don’t.

Which is not to say that this isn’t really grand music – Those who Tell the Truth is huge in scale (with tight production, like I said before) with a tendency to lead to almost hypnotic trance. I mean, it’s really good. The playing is tight, the music is well thought-out and composed. Moods build and shift; songs flow into each other in a really organic way. It’s just really good. Unfortunately, there’s just something inside of me that cries out for something a little more tangible than waves of sound and shifting moods. Give me words, or at least give me melody.

…Missing Opportunities…

Okay, I've put off listening to Tool for something like ten years. I really should have listened to Ænima in ’96 or ’97, but I didn’t. And I really should have listened to Lateralus in college. Man, that record would have put me through college. And it probably would have pushed me in a musically better direction than all the punk I was listening to. People have been telling me this for years and though I’ve come to really like Tool, I still have to defend my reasons for not getting into them in the first place. I’ll get to that.

Even though I’ve never been a fan, not until lately anyway, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Tool has actually been an influence on my own music more than a lot of music I’ve actively tried to copy. I can remember trying to play some riff I had heard somewhere, which turned out to be the introduction to the song Lateralus. The open drone string, the picking patterns, I can name songs I’ve written that sort of evolved from me trying to play this one riff and not knowing what it was.

I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that their music really is a fantastic and fortunate influence on a lot of recent heavy music – in performance but more importantly in production. They manage to make heavy both intimate yet grand, which I think is quite a feat.

Here is Tool’s one flaw as I see it – the reason why I couldn’t get into Tool despite all my fanatical friends – they’ve stuck themselves within something of a niche and won’t ever be able to play around outside of that niche. I’ve never been able to word that sentiment, and I hope that this time it’s clearer than all those other times I’ve tried to sum up that one flaw in just a few words – I’ve tried to use boring, but the music is very engaging. I’ve tried to explain it as a lack of versatility, of a tendency to ignore dynamic variety, an overuse of minor chords, and so on. None of these arguments, valid as they may or may not be (it’s true that they rarely play outside of minor chords but not that they lack dynamic variety), none of these arguments really sum up Tool’s flaw like the thing I wrote just now about the niche.

Tool has limited themselves to minor chords and certain ambient feelings, which isn’t a flaw unless they ever wanted to play something, um, uplifting. I think I have a deep-rooted fear of getting stuck in sameness (variety is the spice of life. Also, I still haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up) that spreads into music as well. And along with a niche and a lack of expansion beyond the dark, minor chord progressions (always brooding, sad, angry, or stoned) comes a tendency to seem predictable. I mean, you almost know the limits of a Tool album before you’ve spun it once. You've got to get into Tool pretty deeply before you realize that there is actually some humor woven into some of the lyrics - there's no way to pick that up from the moods the songs create.

Kay. All that said, these guys are really talented. They spin tunes and moods together into this amalgamous, ethereal, totally organic experience. Not only that, but their thumbprint on rhythmic, heavy music is unmistakable. Several different people have tried to explain to me that their incredible performances are so intricate and orchestrated (one friend kept using the word “concise.” I think he meant “precise,” and I tried to explain to him that Tool is anything but concise). I wouldn’t go so far as using the word “orchestrated,” but I think “richly layered” is apt. Richly layered, as well as well crafted.

I think I’m trying to say that Tool would be my favorite bands if I wasn’t afraid of commitment. They're in the top ten, though.

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And no, I don't have 10,000 Days, though I might have heard bits and pieces of it here an there. I'll probably get it in five or six years.

Sweet Jesus

Add the Meat Puppets to that list as well. The Kirkwood brothers got back together and have an album coming out July 17.

More Anticipation

Add The Polyphonic Spree to that list of exciting upcoming releases. They quit wearing the robes and now wear black fatigues. It's a political thing. Neat. I didn't realize they were capable of being anything but happy all the time.

Of course, their last album might have broached political, with a track called "When the Fool Becomes the King." Of course, if you listen to it, it's all waves of euphoria. Actually, I'm pretty confused about how they could get preachy in any direction but joy.

Whatever. Totally looking forward to it.

Some Quick QOTSA

Every time I type anything about Queens of the Stone Age, some technical crash erases all I type, and that just happened just now. I'll just say that after listening to Desert Sessions 7 & 8 and also Mondo Generator's A Drug Problem that Never Existed, I can fairly say that Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri sort of need each other. Oliveri brings a certain energy that meshes so well with Homme's creativity and nack for clever songwriting. QOTSA music has suffered sine Oliveri's departure, and I'm afraid they'll sink into the already overpopulated "rocking for the sake of rocking" pit of music that they bridge over with something that rocks but also offers so much more. Sigh. I hope the new release is good. This one:

And since I'm on the subject of new releases, this summer is looking good for the hard rocker within me:

Shellac
Chris Cornell
Smashing Pumpkins
Velvet Revolver
Marilyn Manson

and maybe:

Bad Religion (?)
Pixies (?)

Cool.