Concerts to Journey Through Emotions

September, this month I got to see some of my favorite bands. Now when I say concerts which journey through emotions, I really mean how deeply some of the music performed has connected with me.

Anathema / Alcest - Gramercy Theater; September 14, 2013

When I first heard of this tour, and first heard rumor of this tour, I thought it was just too good to be true. Due to this fantastic line up, the concert was to no surprise, sold out. The opening act for this show was Mamiffer, who were an ambient/drone band that I think set a nice mood up for the rest of the concert to follow.

Mamiffer is actualy comprised of former Isis guitarist Aaron Turner, and his wife Faith Coloccia. Together they had a very interesting sound, between her vocals, bowed guitar, and looping themselves which all blended very nicely.
Their set had each song really flow into the next;
01. Rusal'e | 02. Dead Settlers | 03. Mercy | 04. Austejá

I absolutely love all of Alcest's work, and honestly their albums do not do them justice. Their performance was extremely beautiful and emotional, that while I completely love their albums all of that does not convey over a recording. One thing about Alcest, is that their music has the ability to connect so deeply with ones emotions, and can seriously help in feeling better if you are down.

Neige (Alcest)

Prior to heading to the concert, I was stressed for various reasons, one being someone who I had known passed away and their funeral was that morning. But their music really helped me feel so much better, that even more than any time I've listened to their albums. Hearing them live is just showing that recordings can not do them justice, and what fantastic musicians they are for conveying so much emotion through their music to entirely captive the cramped and sold out audience.

Every aspect of their set held the crowd's full attention, whether it be the earthly more post-rock aspects from songs off Les Voyages de l'Âme, or the heaver parts where you can't help but head-bang along to. Granted with through all of this the crowd was pretty tight, but everyone was chill and just flowed with the music through whichever mood it traveled through. Their set was the following:

Alcest

01. Autre temps | 02. Là où Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles | 03. Les Voyages de l'Âme | 04. Opale | 05. Souvenirs d'un autre monde | 06. Beings of Light | 07. Sur l'océan couleur de fer | 08. Percées de Lumière | 09. Summer's Glory | 10. Deliverance

Two of the songs played were from their upcoming album Shelter, which after hearing I even more can not wait for its release. These songs were "Opale" and "Deliverance", which sounded absolutely fantastic. I keep re-watching a video recorded from the concert of "Opale" because it's just so beautiful; hearing those two songs live was a reminder of how much I am anticipating this album and am eager for its release. That song in particular is very warm and uplifting, where it almost transports you to another land (which is not unfamiliar for Alcest's music). Then they closed their set with the other new song, "Deliverance", which was just a nice way to conclude their older material they played with a note to look forward even more for what is to come.

Next Anathema was on, their first time as a whole band in the US in over ten years. Last time they were here, it was as support for Blackfield and only Vincent and Danny Cavanagh playing their songs acoustically. Granted they still had some problems with getting everyone overseas, unfortunately Jamie Cavanagh (bass) and John Douglass (drums) could not make it, so Daniel Cardoso (keyboards) moved on to drums and recommended Tobel Lopes to fill in on bass. All of that being said for what they had to accommodate, they put on a fantastic show.

Now with the [mostly] whole band, they played a lot off of Weather Systems, with a couple older songs as many of the fans in the audience have been waiting for over 10 years to see them live. During the set, they dedicated the song "Dreaming Light"* to both their manager [who was with them] and Steven Wilson for helping them get back on track.

Anathema

On stage the band had a lot of energy, mentioning how they are aware of how long some of the fans had waited to see them live. "I'll never forget this" was said on stage by Danny, and really I don't think anyone in the audience will forget it either. The set they played was the following:

[Intro] | 01. Untouchable, Part 1 | 02. Untouchable, Part 2 | 03. The Gathering of the Clouds | 04. Lightning Song | 05. Thin Air | 06. Dreaming Light | 07. Deep | 08. A Natural Disaster | 09. The Beginning and the End | 10. A Simple Mistake
Encore: | 11. Internal Landscapes | 12. Closer | 13. Fragile Dreams | [Outro] 

Several of the songs they played featured vocalist Lee Douglas who sounded amazing. Her vocals are very prominent on Weather Systems, and on stage they just come across fantastic with the band.

After the concert, since it was a relatively small venue a bunch of the guys in Anathema and Alcest were downstairs meeting and talking with fans. I still can't believe this happened, by which I mean getting to meet Neige from Alcest. Even though I was kind of [really] awkward, he was just extremely nice and polite, very chill to talk to people.

I also got to meet Vincent and Danny Cavanagh again, which was really cool. Talked to them a little bit, so that was just a nice way to end the concert. Now just to specify, the photo on the right is me with Neige, and happy beyond belief because of it. :)
I have to say this concert, Alcest's performance in particular, was one of the best concert's I've been to musically and just the emotional experience that was created with their music.

* If I remember correctly, this was the song that they dedicated to them, and unfortunately I did not catch the name of the manager who was on tour with them.

Atoms for Peace

Atoms for Peace - Barclays Center; September 28, 2013

The live sound of Atoms for Peace is really unique even when compared to their album AMOK. There performance brought in a whole new dimension to their music, and more so to the songs that they played off of Thom Yorke's solo album The Eraser. The opening act for them was James Holden, who performed some really cool electronic music.

Throughout the performance Thom Yorke and Flea were dancing around the whole stage, and you could tell that the entire band just has so much energy that was brought through in the music. Even with having seats way high up (literally a couple rows from the ceiling), I had a great time. Happy to saw I've seen Thom Yorke live twice now, first with Radiohead at the Prudential Center last year, and now with Atoms for Peace.

Here is the set they played, and since I hadn't been looking into what they were playing on tour (I consider that to be a little bit of "spoilers"), I was pleasantly surprised with some of their songs:

01. Before Your Very Eyes... | 02. Default | 03. The Clock | 04. Ingenue | 05. Stuck Together Pieces | 06. Unless | 07. And It Rained All Night | 08. Harrowdown Hill | 09. Dropped | 10. Cymbal Rush

Encore: 11. Skip Divided | 12. Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses | 13. Rabbit in Your Headlights [UNKLE cover] | 14. Paperbag Writer [Radiohead cover] | 15. Amok
Encore 2: 16. Atoms for Peace | 17. Black Swan

Ten Years to Hubardo

Marking the 10 year anniversary of the avant-garde band Kayo Dot, is the release of their seventh studio album Hubardo. If you haven't purchased it yet, do that right now through their bandcamp, which also has three of the songs from the album up to stream. That being said, this album is a massive 100-minute work which words can hardly describe.

I was originally planning on waiting until my deluxe edition arrives, but I figure why wait, and maybe I may encourage someone to go out and order a copy before the physical release of it. The digital download of the album came with high quality images of the artwork which will be featured on the vinyl, as a PDF of the lyrics. If you got this and wanted to burn the loss-less audio files of the album onto CDs, the split would be between tracks 6 and 7 (x).

I should start off by saying that Kayo Dot is on of my favorite bands, so needless to say this album was one of the more anticipated and hyped albums of the year for me. That being said, it did not disappoint my expectations in the slightest.

The album begins with "The Black Stone", which starts off with menacing growled lyrics reminiscent of maudlin of the Well, and minimal accompaniment that gradually builds up. This leads up to the following song, "Crown-In-The-Muck".

"Thief" presents almost a mix of what Kayo Dot has done throughout their discography in a way that blends very nicely together. "Vision Adjustment to Another Wavelength" follows that, continuing with the same intensity. One of my favorite aspects of this song is the descending saxophone line at the beginning, as well as the transition to the slower tempo flute solo over the more minimal percussion.

"Zlida Caosgi (To Water the Earth)" is the following song, continuing more on the intense path. "The First Matter (Saturn in the Guise of Sadness)" starts off a lot more relaxed, and with clean vocals over the synthesizers and guitar/bass line. This is followed by what would be the start of the second half of the album "The Second Operation (Lunar Water)" which continues in the same style. I just completely love the blend of the instruments in this song, especially between the french horn, trumpet, and violin in the introduction. This blending continues into the addition of the vocal parts, which sound fantastic all together. "Floodgate" follows and goes back to focusing more on the intense aspects of their sound.



"And He Built Him a Boat" remains one of my favorite tracks on the album since they first released the stream of it before the actual release date. The combination of the vocal line Toby Driver sings, timbre of the guitar in this song particularity, choir in the background, and the nature of the drumming, it's really captivating. "Passing the River" is a song whose title is true to it's tone, as having a sound you can associate with a river with more calming aspects as well as intense. "The Wait of the World" closes the album with a more jazz-like groove. On a side note, I wish they had released a score for this album to follow along with (or for any of their albums really due to the nature of the band's music).

Hubardo has so much to take in, that still after several listens I know there is still so much more to hear. I think easily this is going to remain one of the top releases of the year, through the overall flow of the album to it's production value and musicianship. With that, I can not wait until the vinyls of this are printed/shipped to hear which I am sure will bring a whole new level to the experience of listening to this album.

Death By Audio, 4/28/12

I had gotten to see them live once last April at Death By Audio in Brooklyn, where they played with Vaura and Dysrhythmia. One thing I have to say about the venue is that inside it's a work of art. Every wall is covered with psychedelic murals, really trippy and I would love to visit there again if they have some band I might recognize.

When I saw them I believe they mostly played songs off of Gamma Knife, since at the time I hadn't heard that album and a lot of the material they played I did not recognize off hand. Unfortunately I have yet to find a set list posted somewhere online to list what they did play.. However as you would expect from Kayo Dot, it sounded fantastic. I really hope to see them live again next time they have a concert in the area that I can make.

If anything can be taken away from this review/writeup, let it be just that it is difficult to describe this album in words. This is a work that can really just be experienced through multiple listening(s), anything else would not do it justice.

May/June '13: Sabbath 13 | Crowds | State

Since I haven't been keeping up too much with the every other month uploading various album reviews of what's been released, here are some reviews of a few albums that came out recently.. Now these are brief, but I may expand upon them further later on. I just wanted to get some newer albums somewhat reviewed before I get swamped with class work for the semester.

Black Sabbath - 13

The much anticipated new Black Sabbath album, 13, with most of the original line up; Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Brad Wilk on drums (instead of Bill Ward). This is their first studio album since Forbidden which was released in 1995 (that I personally love and is sadly out of print), but even longer since the last studio album with Ozzy on vocals which was Never Say Die! in 1978.

The album closes with a perfect way of paying homage to the first album Black Sabbath that came out in 1970, ending with the same sort of thunderstorms which opened that album. The whole album really does not disappoint as far as Sabbath goes. If you have not heard it up, embrace your inner metal head (even if you are not one) and pick up a copy. I would also like to add, that from having access to a copy of the deluxe edition (while not mine), it is fantastic between the packaging, vinyl, and other artwork, really an excellent presentation for the music.

Bruce Soord & Jonas Renkse - Wisdom of Crowds

A very interesting collaboration between Bruce Soord (of The Pineapple Thief) and Jonas Renkse (of Katatonia). The music written by Soord specifically with Renkse's voice in mind, brings the electronic alternative rock elements similar to that of The Pineapple Thief to the voice that is known to bring the sorrowful gloom of emotions from Katatonia.

This album is really a lot more than just that though, since it differs so much from each musicians main bands. The sound that they bring to this album is really unique, and even if you are unfailiar with either of their main band, I would just recommend picking this up and giving it a listen.


TesseracT - Altered State

The second album from them, now having a new vocalist Ashe O’Hara, who for the album does entirely clean vocals. On their previous album One, there was a mix of both clean and harsh vocals which blended nicely with their sound, but while still maintaining that they continue on with solely clean. It proves to be a solid follow up to their first release, so if you were into their sound before I would recommend continuing to follow them with their new singer



There are obviously many other fantastic albums that have came out so far this year that I have not reviewed, but I may do more reviews of those later on, or save such reviews for when I do my top 10 albums of 2013. I've already started listing the new albums I have listened to so far this year, and noting the ones that have really stood out to me. Although I do expect to do many more of certain upcoming albums at least, especially those which are for me at least, highly anticipated (and since listening to some of them they do not disappoint in the slightest).

Also, expect to see a few more concert reviews at the end of the month because I am seeing some amazing bands that I can not wait for (same for October, as well as another voyage to the New York Comic Con). Possibly also a post on some of my vinyl collection and my parents collection from the 70's, but that would probably wait until after the album/concert write ups due to time constraints of the semester.