Week 10 of 52 albums for a year
Geordie Groop - The New Sound
Hello everyone. It's an early 4:30 in the morning session for me. I'm awake so I thought why not get into life. I hope you are all well.
This week I went with The New Sound by Geordie Greep. It was recommended to me by my mate Mortas, it's an experimental jazz album, and it's pretty intense.
From the opening notes of Blues, I found my interest was piqued. It's frenetic, the guitar is incredibly fast, yet the sound is laid back, at least initially. The lyrics, the intensity of the music, the short trip down memory lane remembering the nostalgia of CD's skipping, I was totally sucked into this song. This is modern day Frank Zappa, with a bit of Mr Bungle and King Crimson thrown in. There's a stream of consciousness feel to it, with Geordie Greep singing and at times crooning over the top, before sounding more like a preacher man when the chaos really hits.
Then when the next song, Terra, comes on, there is such a different feel to it. It sounds like the sort of thing I can imagine people doing salsa dancing to. There are horns and this vibrant sound that makes you want to move your body to.
It's probably about now that I should mention that this album was recorded half in England, and half in Brazil. It's an interesting story, and you can read about it if you click on the bandcamp link, but Geordie Greep, formerly of Black Midi, recorded this whole thing pretty damn quickly. I don't know much Black Midi, the couple of songs I did hear I remember enjoying. I'm a big fan of The Mars Volta, and I remember feeling like Black Midi slightly scratched that itch when the band finished up years ago (though they are now back together thankfully).
I have digressed.
Holy Holy initially reminded me of a song called Let's Groove by CDB. Once the singing starts it changes completely, but there was something about that little intro groove that just threw me back to primary school. Holy Holy is another one of these songs where the lyrics really make this song. It tells the story of a man who... well he meets a woman and initially it sounds like she's impressed because of who he is, by his dancing skills, by the fact he's 'holy'. As the song progresses though, you learn that he's pre-paid a prostitute to meet him at a bar and talk him up, with no intention of having sex with her.
This kicks in to The New Sound which has no lyrics and always reminds me of a song you would hear on Mario Kart. I know, it's ridiculous, but if you have ever played Mario Kart, tell me your thoughts. I love it, and I always forget when it's going to come on.
Walk up is an alright song, it grabs me with the music and the moments of intensity. At the end of the song there's a stripped back blues moment, almost like a hidden track, which comes on after the sounds of a bar. Then the next couple of songs, Through a War and Bongo Season are alright, but they don't grab me. I mean there's moments when my attention is grabbed, hearing him sing things like 'have you tasted human flesh? Have you had sex with the dead?' makes me remember that I'm listening to something pretty messed up, but as a whole, the sound of these songs just isn't my thing. I don't dislike them, I play them all the way through with no issue, but it's just kind of background music for me.
When I read through the lyrics, which for the most part I haven't done until I've sat here to write this, I get drawn back to these songs from the twisted stories. One is about a business man who visits a prostitute on his lunch break and how he ignores his favourite girl when he walks past with a colleague the next day. Another is about war, doing horrific things, and essentially stealing a woman as a wife and contracting a venereal disease from her but wanting to marry her. Interesting stories, but also pretty fucked up you know?
Then comes one of my favourite songs on the album, Motorbike. This is back to the sound I love, here's that frenetic energy again. There's an intensity and madness to this song that I just fucking love. The vocals (by Seth Adams) remind me of a deep voiced Muse. This is what I wish The New Sound had more of, this kind of intensity. Absolutely fantastic song.
The As If Waltz is one song that really grew on me. It flips between 2 very different sounds, and it's easy to understand the lyrics, which are about wanting to know a woman for longer than an hour. Yeah, another prostitute themed song, but it's very sad, I feel for this guy who wants love and is just looking in the wrong place. As for the song, I love the dynamics in this song, the changes grow and subtly get more intense whevever it comes back to the verse.
Of the last two songs. The Magician is alright I guess, but it clocks in at 12 minutes and just doesn't cover much music in that time. Oh sure, there's peaks and troughs, and a bit of a jam near the end that I do enjoy, but compared to Blues and Motorbike, the majority of this song is musically boring. Lyrics? Oh it's got heaps. And sure, they are good, diving into themes of... well how it feels to be dead inside from visiting prostitutes (of course). But to my ears, I mean there's about 9 minutes of music that plays before the 'good bit'.
And the last song is a Frank Sinatra cover called If You Are But A Dream which is quite sad, but again, it's a slow, kind of boring song when compared to what drew me to this album at the very start.
So how do I rate this album?
The songs I like, I fucking love. Blues and Motorbike are for me the two real stand outs, but I can see myself coming back to Tera, Holy Holy, The New Sound, Walk Up, and the As If Waltz
Dare I say it but this is the kind of album that needs more than 5 listens to really appreciate all of it. I feel like I've scratched the surface, and enjoyed quite a lot, but really it's the lyrics that probably push some of these songs over from being 'ok' to 'great'. But diving into the lyrics is like going down the rabbit hole of an album. It is, for me at least, the last thing I do. Unless something is really grabbing me, I usually hear the vocals as just another type of instrument. Fancy wordplay is fine, but is it actually enjoyable? Do I feel something from it? Does it enhance already good music?
With this in mind, and the fact that the songs I love I really fucking love, I'm going to give the album 3.5 fingers out of 5. If Blues and Motorbike weren't on it, I'd give it 3. If there was one more song that hit that level of intensity for me, I'd probably rate it 4. I'm definitely going to come back to this one, and I'd highly recommend people listen to Blues because it's one of the most interesting songs I think I've heard in the last 5 years. But I can't rate an album off of just one or two songs unfortunately.
The year so far:
And now it's almost 6:30 in the morning and I need to get onto other things, like getting ready for work. I hope you all have a great week!
Blues: Spoken word poetry set to the frenetic fingerings of a methamphetamine fueled fever dream.
Or in other words, good stuff.