tBS: more Denial of Death

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 17/02/2006 03:00, Albert Bouchard wrote:
> Thanks guys:
> I do feel like it's my best work in… I don't know. I feel like every
> album is my best usually. I remember being stunned when people didn't
> like Mirrors. But in retrospect I can see that Mirrors was a bit of a
> left turn for many fans.

Well, for my part, I must have been about 8 when Mirrors came out -- and
it was the early 90s before I heard it for first time :)  I come to
everything BOCish in hindsight. And actually it always seemed to me like
Mirrors wasn't a real departure from the progression set off by Agents
and then Spectres.  Nothing like the change of feel I get between ST and
Agents, anyway.

But I don't actually think any of the Agents-thru-Cultosaurus albums,
would win Nobel Prizes for *consistency* in terms of the songs and
arrangements and the overall vibe.  I think Fire of Unknown Origin
sounds more consistent than Agents.

(And, OK, in this age of downloading single tracks from iTunes, I guess
the need to make a consistent album is something that is rapidly losing
importance, but I guess most of us still buy most of our music in
packages of a dozen songs, so the first subconscious impression is
probably still that what we got was intended to be a collection of
related stuff.)

> The thing is you don't really think about
> how people will perceive your work. I just think about what I have to
> say and how I want to say it. In that regard I will say that I had an
> idea to make a kind of metal that I didn't hear anyone else doing
> (except for maybe Last Crack, remember them?). Ross wanted to do a
> metal album and I just said OK but let's make it about real stuff,
> not norse gods or mythical creatures or how we can f$%k all night.

;) Probably a good plan -- and I say that as someone with degrees in
Norse Gods and mythical creatures.  But, ya know, well, Ross has
certainly been there and done that and got T-shirt :)

> Once we got into it, of course, we started trying to use those same
> images for metaphors but that's song-writing. ;-) Bottom line is that
> I think Jason nailed it when he said originally that this is a kind
> of personal metal. These songs are not exercises. Every song is about
> a real experience. Other songwriters do that all the time but it's a
> first for me.

I also think DoD sounds like a band that not only thinks they have
something to prove but is confident that it is being proven to you in
every note.  That perception may be right or wrong :) but I perceive it
more strongly here than on previous tBS albums or on most "post-ST" BOC
albums.  Perhaps that wells up out of the personal nature of the
song-writing ... and Ross's undoubted guitar-maestro chops crank up the
energy all around.  Whatever it all is, it certainly seems to be working! :)

> I'll try to get all the lyrics up on the cellsum site
> this weekend.

Cool.  I was kinda missing them in the booklet, but hey -- these days,
why print reams of lyrics on dead trees when it actually kind of makes
more sense to put them in dead electrons :)

Cheers,
Carl, who is starting to get concerned that he's turned old before his
time, noting that many of his favorite releases of the last year or so
are from people who first made records around the time he was born if
not before! ;) Oh well, if it rocks, it rocks :)

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea at carlaz.com
http://www.carlaz.com/