I know I’ve
already reviewed this song but I don’t think this is going to be a review. I
don’t know what this is going to be but I feel the need to blog about this song
again because it’s amazing.
“You’re pretty spot on with whispering trees. I penned the
lyrics at kind of turning point in my life. I think g. was experiencing
something similar so it’s really has a sense of melancholy. At its core, for me
it’s about leaving the past behind accepting my faults and realizing the
potential the future holds.” - Jay Tye
I asked if
the song was supposed to be sort of sad in nature because after the first
hundred times I listened to it I finally realized that it’s slightly
depressing. I’d say just look at the lyrics but it’s more than that obviously.
They have a sound in this song and I’ve listened to some other slower songs
that I was able to either find on YouTube or I brought on Itunes. I can’t say
any songs of theirs have such an effect of me like Whispering Trees does. I know
it’s just a song but that’s my point. It might be something inside of me, but
the only way I can describe what happens when I listen to it is that it’s like
a trance but I’m coherent to everything else around me, however it’s almost
impossible to stop listening to it. It’s not the curse of the repeat button
it’s more than that. I think it’s
kind of like Enya’s “Only Time,” I remember when I heard that after I was
reintroduced to Enya I was addicted to just that song and I had no idea why.
(Album Artwork)
Soil and Eclipse
has a very interesting sound I know I said I love layered vocals before but I’m
serious they’d be great even if they didn’t layer any vocals at all. I’m happy
they layered vocals for this song on the chorus because it helps a lot.
(Jay Tye and G.W. Childs)
I listen to
many different artists I currently have 2060 songs on my Itunes, not that
listen to every song all the time some stuff I haven’t listened to in months
sits on Itunes until I remember I liked it and then I listen to it again. Out
of all the musicians on that list in all honestly Soil and Eclipse stands out
the most. I don’t think I’ve ever been this confused, saddened, and yet happy
by one song in my life. I’ve had those emotions from separate songs but not all
in one song. I’ve been inspired by a lot of songs, but once again Whispering
Trees is on the top of that list right next to Evil Angel. If I could put the
little images I have in my head together maybe something awesome will happen
but for now they’re just little scenes that escape me every time I try to write
them down. Is it a story, a music video idea, a future movie idea? I don’t know
but I’ll figure it out one day. It could be all three of those things for all I
know.
Touching on
the emotional side of the song, there’s a lot going on both in context and out
of context. I’ll start with this part first:
“I could be
guided by heaven
I could be
guided by heaven
I must be
guided by heaven
I must be
guided by heaven”
You have to
listen to the song in order to understand the ‘out of context’ portion. Taking this
verse out of the song and just reading it loses the magic, just listen to this
point of the song the first time it comes around and compare it to the second
time. There’s a big difference in both of them and the same goes for the
chorus. I thought there was bitterness at some point in time and hopeful in the
other… The first time I heard the chorus I thought it was legitimately hopeful
and the second time for some reason I feel like there’s a struggle and
desperation, a sense of doubt. Like the first time it was sung you know that
there’s a belief in the message and then the second time it’s kind of unsure if
the right decision but it’s going to happen anyway. The third time is the
painful chorus it’s the same as the others but with this added to it:
“I chose my
fate
And now this
is my destiny”
The outro is
just someone walking away, if I had to put a picture to it that’s what would
happen. Random side note, I honestly wonder how it would sound if the lyrics
were actually, “I chose my fate and now this is the death of me.” I don’t know
why but that’s what I thought I was hearing and then I read the lyrics and I
was wrong. Actually I thought it was “Now this is my death of me,” but that
doesn’t make any sense…
The song has
an undertone of a painful transition, like something’s tearing your heart out
but you know it has to happen. I think that can be supported by the whispered
verses.
I’ve written
about 900 words so far according to Microsoft word and I’m still not sure what
I’m trying to say or if I’m happy with these 900 words.
Switching
gears to the Oakland 2k mix aka the remix of Whispering Trees. It is a whole
other entity within itself like I can’t compare this to the original song
because it’s so different yet it’s the same. It’s still whispering trees, it’s
still got the same tempo and all that stuff but there’s more stuff added to it.
DLI the name
attached to the remix of “Whispering Trees” doesn’t come up in Google search,
but thanks to Facebook I was able to ask about the mysterious DLI and I received
this answer:
“Count (Zero) is the singer of DLI. G.W. actually was in DLI
for several years and wrote a fair bit of material with them that will be
coming out later in the year. MO or Maurice Jackson remixed it with him. He
also did the Exile Remix. Hope this helps!” ~Jay Tye
I’m not
exactly sure who Count Zero is, but I don’t hear a third voice in the remix so
I’m guessing he didn’t sing he just helped with the remix since GW was a band
mate and presumably a friend of his. DLI did one hell of a job on the remix, it’s
like the best remix I’ve heard of a song in a long time. It’s not one of those
obnoxious remixes with unnecessary bass and stuff added to it. There’s some
cool stuff added to the opening and some of the vocals sounds like they’re
underwater and I say that in the nicest way possible. I adore the drums (I
believe it’s a tympani) added into the song at various points of the song.
With the
remix there’s another life added to the song but if you take that away you’re
left with an amazing song anyways. Both songs are equally great and they both
mean a lot to me even if I can’t find the right words to say to properly praise
and promote them.
Soil and
Eclipse create beautiful songs they deserve more fame than they have at the
moment. There also needs to be a place on the East coast preferably in New
Jersey as close to Atlantic City as possible (or in Atlantic City) that can
book them so they can add the East coast to their mini tour. I am anxious to
see them perform live…
It’s time for another Assemblage 23 review
because it’s been over a year since I’ve reviewed one of A23’s songs. The first
song I reviewed was “Breath Of Ghosts” from the Addendum album. I forget when I
stumbled upon “Maps of Reality,” but I had the album Defiance on Itunes for
ages but never really bothered to skim through it due to “Fallen Down”
consuming my life. Thankfully AOL broke that spell the song had on me and here
I am today reviewing it.
Defiance released in October of 2002 and it’s Tom
Shear’s third album. Tom’s the main guy behind Assemblage 23 in case anyone
forgot. I thought about reviewing Fallen Down, but I’ll get to that later,
right now “Maps of reality” the ninth track on “Defiance” gets to have its
shining moment of awesome.
I wasn’t sure what I was getting into with this
song but it has a decent introduction and then Tom sings and I was sold even
though I wasn’t quite sure what the lyrics were until I looked at them. It was
one of those moments where you’re like I don’t know what is being said but I
like it!
Verse One:
“I suppose in your mind you believe you were
right
That the matter doesn't rest heavy on your shoulders
But be careful of the ones you wish to indict
Blame is merely in the eye of the beholder”
We all know a person like this, who someone who
thinks they’re right no matter how many times someone proves them wrong. Often
times their arrogance and ego end up affecting someone else in a negative way
and they don’t even care. They’re so convinced they’re opinion is the right one
and nothing else matters and there must be immediate action now that they’ve
said ‘the truth.’
Verse two:
“Perhaps the time is right to look yourself in
the eye
Take inventory of the world you see around you
Look at the allegations you were quick to deny
And ask yourself if they could possibly be true”
What happens to the idiots who have their head so
far up their own asses they can’t see the crap their spouting is wrong? It
comes back to bite them as hard as it possibly can. That obviously happened and
now Tom’s telling this person to take a deep long look at themselves and what
they’ve done, soak in all the crap everyone threw at this person and then look
at everything they’ve really denied and see how much of a hypocrite they are… basically
every crazy politician in the world ever…
Chorus:
“Distorted maps of reality
Are tearing us apart
Fan the flames of fallacy
And watch the truth depart”
“Belief is what you make of it
A creation of your own
If the outcome is unfit
Let your conscience take the blow”
The first part is plain and simple; a
relationship can only take so much crap until someone can’t take it anymore. From
the sound of the first half of the chorus, there are many people involved with
this situation. So we’ll bring in crazy politicians and logic to make this
simpler. Say you’re a TV station focusing on politics but you used to be credible and then somewhere along the line a bunch of conspiracy theory believers and crazy theorist took over and now your station went to shit. They might have been a credible news company at some point in time but they twisted themselves into spiteful and just
vile humans and the smart people soon realize how full of crap they are and
decide to stop watching once they realized how stupid some of these people are.
The other percent of people who don’t believe in logical thinking and reasoning
and being normal humans, decide to buy into the bullshit and forget the fact
they’re being deceived, lied to, walked on, I could go on forever. See if you
keep saying something over and over to the same amount of people eventually
someone will believe it and then they’ll spread the stupid and a disease of stupid
spreads around… The second half of the chorus backs that up one hundred
percent. However when the stupid gets thrown in their face and they’re backed
into a corner, they just swallow their shame and not care. They might apologize
but they don’t really mean it and then they’ll go back to their sleaze ball
ways in a few days or weeks.
Verse Three:
“It's everybody else's fault besides your own
But perhaps the finger's pointing in the wrong direction
Consider that the root of all that you bemoan
Is pictured in the visage of your own reflection”
This verse will take a break from crazy politics
in case that’s not very relatable. If nothing else that I mentioned affected you
in any way shape or form, think about this. Think of a chronic liar if you don’t
know anyone pretend you have a friend who no one really likes and everyone picks
on them because of a few stupid things they’ve said. You decide to be the
bigger person and befriend them… At first everything is okay between the two of
you and then you introduce them to your group of people you’re always around.
Then drama starts and lies all over and it always goes back to this person.
When they are questioned, they say it’s everyone else causing problems not
them. This goes on until you now have to set up separate times to hang out with
your regular friends and then you hang out with this person without your
regular friends because everyone hates said person. Pretty crappy situation…
well yeah I’ve been there before. They know who they are and what they did and
I hope to god they stumble upon this review. This is a song for that type of
person, the people who have no soul and just lie out their ass just because it
suits them. They don’t care who they hurt but as long as they’re happy nothing
else matters. If you decide to stand up for yourself then you’re the enemy too
despite all the times you tried defending them even though they were in the
wrong as well. Not that I constantly denied the fact the certain person was
wrong, but when people started attacking this person (verbally) behind their
back, I’d tell them to stop because the person isn’t there to defend themselves.
Verse Four:
“I don't expect your view to change, my God, why
should it?
You have yourself convinced that you can do no wrong
There's not a chance at all that you will ever admit
The cause of this is you and has been all along”
Scumbags I described before, pathological liars
with no souls, selfish to a point of no return, those types of people never
admit they’re wrong and they’ve been spouting bullshit for so long that they
believe it now. Dealing with these types of people takes a special kind of
patience that I don’t have. You have to realize that expecting them to change
because you called them out on their bullshit every time you catch them is the
stupidest thing you can do. They feel no remorse for anything they’ve done they
don’t care who they’ve hurt or who’s reputation they’ve damaged even though
they are well aware all the crap they’re putting everyone through is completely
their fault.
The chorus happens again and I realize this will
be a slightly long review, this is one of those topics I could blab on and on
about, it all culminates to this: there’s a chunk of humanity that sucks and we’d
all like to just kick the crap out of because they are begging for their teeth
to be knocked down their throat. Beating them to a pulp makes you the bad guy
and that’s what those people want so the next time you have the fortune to run
into a person like this, argue with words and if they refuse to listen wish
them the best of luck in their life of crazy and walk away. It will suck and
you’ll wish you’d hit them but it’s better in the long run if you leave them
physically unharmed because depending on the circumstance, words hurt a hell of
a lot more than physical actions do.
Verse Five:
“Distorted lines become an arc become a circle
The words entwined until the very meaning is gone
The truth is something for which you can find no purpose
It's just a starting point to drape more lies upon”
This verse is another simply put verse; one lie
becomes another which spawns more lies. Those lies give birth to other lies
until it’s a tangled web of a mess and the truth is nowhere to be found. If
they manage to find the point of truth then it’s useless because that’s just another
thing to lie about in the audience’s (or peers’) eyes. Nothing they say once
they’ve been exposed will be taken with a grain of salt because they lie so
much no one cares when they actually have something truthful or when they’re
actually right. Their words mean nothing to the smart people who know to stay
the hell away and not listen but for the idiots who refuse to see the bullshit
their being fed, well they’re just as bad if not worse than the person their
worshiping… or they’re like me and were naïve and stupid and believed that just
because someone was your friend it meant they wouldn’t do anything to
emotionally scar you or use you for their own personal needs. Then reality
slaps you in the face and opens your eyes.
Verse six:
“I wish you luck, I really do, because you'll
need it
You can't avoid reality for too long
And everything collapses into waves of regret
When you finally understand that it was you who was wrong”
The last verse before the final chorus arrives is
the happy ending verse, but from personal experience life doesn’t always end up
this way. Not to say that my life experience has been worse than whatever Tom
was writing about, by no means am I comparing the two but in a way I am
comparing it. However the contrasting has to occur at some point and maybe his
situation ended with the scumbag regretting what happened. I honestly hoped my
situation could have ended up this way but as I mentioned before, when you’re
dealing with a pathological liar who lied about things you don’t lie about and
tell someone they hope their babies are stillborn, that moment the person had
to face realizing they were wrong might have happened, but it doesn’t mean a
damn thing to me. I don’t care because that means I’m still emotionally
attached and I believe there’s some humanity left in this soulless person. I suffered
from this person and I’m still hurting but they won’t care because they’re
living a great life because as far as I know, jail was the rightful punishment
for some of the shit this person pulled, but that never happened. I don’t
really have much else to say about this verse…
“Maps of Reality” and “Breath of Ghosts” are on
two completely different scales. One song might be about a paranormal event Tom
experienced or not, it could be a random song he thought of just for the hell
of it. “Maps of Reality” has a purpose for all the low lives in the world who
think they’re bullshit is the end all be all, well you’re wrong and one day you’ll
realize how wrong you are but by that point no one will believe you because
everyone thinks you’re stupid and you have some people wishing death and
violence against you so have fun with your life of misery, I’m washing my hands
of the situation. I wonder if this song was closure for Tom or just a means of
venting…
You know who I haven’t talked about in a while? Soil and Eclipse and guess what world! My birthday just passed and I got Itunes cards… guess what I brought with some of the money? That’s right, Soil and Eclipse songs because they’re amazing and I needed more songs and I brought their album The Mirror because I wanted to.
Also Archetype is apparently back up on Itunes I don’t know when that happened, it’s kind of expensive compared to other albums on Itunes, but it’s okay because it’s amazing and you should all go buy it now that it’s available for purchase.
Before I decided to buy the whole album of Mirror, I was previewing songs and Elysium Rain was one of those songs that I loved the second I heard it. It might end up turning into another Whispering Trees which is always a good thing. Anyways, The Mirror came out in 2008 and it’s track number two on the album. There’s also a random switching of languages towards the end of the song. However there are no lyrics for this song on the internet… that’s awesome… There’s also no YouTube video so I’m shit out of luck.
If you can hunt down The Mirror I recommend buying this song (as well as the album but I’ll hype that up in another review) the song flaunts Soil and Eclipse abilities to right a kick ass chorus and an overall amazing electronic song. The chorus was the easiest part lyric wise.
Chorus:
“Lights of Elysium rain down
Into this shattered soul
Lights of Elysium Rain down
Elysium Rain
Lights of Elysium rain down
Into this hollow hole
Lights of Elysium rain down
Elysium Rain”
I wasn’t sure what Elysium meant in any way shape or form until I Googled it and the definition means:
1.The place at the ends of the earth to which certain favored heroes were conveyed by the gods after death
2.A place or state of perfect happiness
Wikipedia says “Elysium is a conception of the afterlife that evolved over time and was maintained by certain Greek religious and philosophical sects, and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was initially reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life.” And suddenly the song makes so much sense… sort of… the second verse is a little confusing. It explains the chorus and the overall tone of the song and that’s good enough for me. The general gist of the song (most likely) is doing your best to please a god or higher being of sorts and being rewarded,
“I fought the battle high up on the hill …” Verse one
I could be completely wrong because there’s clearly a conflict depicted in the verses. Maybe it’s about a religious figure contemplating their fate during a time of some kind of religious battle… something along those lines.
“Was I not a good man for my time?
Paying every debt for every crime
Consecrating vestments in his Holy name
And shall my life be taken on this day
Let the soul be spirited away
I will see the sunset with a battle cry” Verse two
“Lights of Elysium Rain down
Into this shattered soul…” Chorus
And then verse three states all the religious and war overtones
“I walked a thousand miles to fall today
At your alter here now where I pray
That you bring my army strength to beat this pearl
And as the grey skull knight returns to Gail
I can see them through the shifting bail
As their armies gather in the fields below”
See there’s a fight going on and I might have Assassin’s Creed on my mind because I just got a new copy of Brotherhood but that game is all I can think of while listening to it. It fits that whole time period the first game was set in. If I was technologically smart I would totally make a video with this song set to it and it would be awesome but I’m not that good at making game music videos.
Looking at the song from another perspective without any religious overtones, it could be about a person who tried to live their life by the rules and might have messed up along the way, and towards the end of their life they hope nothing bad happens to them once they die… Or it has nothing to do with death and someone just wants to have a good life after going through a really dark time in their life. That works as well. I personally like the idea of the doubt filled religious figure caught up in a war and praying for forgiveness even though they might not deserve it.
That’s all I have to say about Elysium rain at the moment until I get a response back from Soil and Eclipse about lyrics and theme of the song I’m surprised I made this as long as I did.
What do you get when you mix Middle Eastern
styled music with the awesome that is Rudy Ratzinger? You get Voodoo void from
his album Schädling sometimes spelled as Schaedling.
Overall the album doesn’t stand out much from the
rest of his stuff. There’s an awkward chunk of time where there was one decent
or amazing song and the rest is just not that great or completely terrible,
“You Are a Goth” I’m looking at you. Schädling has two songs that are
listenable, Voodoo Void and Rifki which isn’t as great as Voodoo Void but it’s
still pretty decent. This album came out in that awkward time I just described
it started in 2001 with Wreath of Barbs and ended with Siamese, some albums get
a free pass currently because I haven’t listened to them yet (Evoke and Fuckit
are the only two exceptions.)
Voodoo Void isn’t that great of a song either,
actually when I first listened to it I thought the first half of the song was
boring as hell. Then I listened to it a million more times and grew to love it.
Why was I listening to it a million more times if I just said the first half is
boring? The second half of the song is amazing and that’s what the boring was
attempting to build up to and once I listened to it a bunch of times, I
realized the first half works perfectly because anything else would have
overshadowed the chorus part of the song. The only part of the song that I
dislike is the lyrics for the frist half of the song and the chorus doesn’t
help because the curse of the repetitive lyrics returns but I honestly don’t
mind it. The song is short enough to ignore it and just enjoy the awesome music
unlike Loyal to my hate that song is entirely too long to ignore the repetitive
lyrics if it didn’t have such long musical interludes and awesome music to
provide some sort of change to the song.
“Hail.
Hail.
Welcome.
Welcome.
To our Tender.
You're the right one.
You're the tight one.”
I guess this counts as verse one and there’s not
much to say about it except there’s a rather sexy drum beat that I absolutely
adore. The song relies on the music and thankfully it works out in the end.
Another aspect that “You Are a Goth” failed at. You know I get the feeling by
those last two lines this song has nothing to do with actual voodoo… what else
could ‘You’re the right one, you’re the tight one’ mean?
“You Have Practice.
We need your Help!
We need your Help!
We... We...
Have Someone.
Have Someone.
To Cast a spell on!
To Cast a spell on!”
This is the second verse and I have one question.
Who are you casting a spell on? I’m serious you can’t just walk up to a person
that does Voodoo and say “I have someone I want to cast a spell on,” and then
just end the sentence there. They’re going to need details if he’s talking to a
person who practices voodoo.
“This is Voodoo
This is Voodoo
This is Voodoo
This is Voodoo”
The bridge or an attempt at a bridge I think
happens here and the music puts on the breaks adding to the creepy mysterious
tone the previous verses help set up. The awesome happens at around 1:55 and it
is indeed awesome.
“This is voodoo.
This is our voodoo void.
This is our voodoo void.
This is voodoo.
This is our voodoo void.
This is our voodoo void.”
Yes, that is the awesome that hooked me on the
song. I want to learn how to play the violin so I can play this part of the
song. If it’s not a violin then it is a string instrument that I must obtain
and learn to play.
That’s kind of it for Voodoo void, there a brief
break of the awesome music for another “This is Voodoo” repetition and then the
chorus happens again. The song isn’t fantastic but it’s not horrible, it’s just
a good song. I also have no idea what a voodoo void is but void has many
definitions:
Adjective:
1.
Containing no matter; empty.
2. Not
occupied; unfilled.
3. Completely
lacking; devoid: void of understanding
4. Ineffective;
useless.
5. Having
no legal force or validity; null: a contract rendered void.
Void is also a verb as well:
1.
a. An
empty space.
b. A
vacuum.
2. An
open space or a break in continuity; a gap.
3. A
feeling or state of emptiness, loneliness, or loss.
I’m not
sure what this all means in the relation to the song but there’s multiple
meanings implied, there’s a sexy undertone, there’s the obvious message of
wanting to have someone do voodoo on another person, and then the title is
called voodoo void…
That
confusing thought ends part two of my anniversary review.
(Not my video I just love Assassin's Creed so I used
This fan-made video)
* The official date I started reviewing was July 5th 2011, the date I started typing this review, July 9, 2012 I’m four days late but hell at least I remembered… I honestly thought I started in August which was when I planned on making these anniversary reviews for the majority of the month. Oh well maybe I’ll be on time next year. *
I spent quite a while wondering what song or band I should review for my anniversary. I thought about a follow up Assemblage 23 review since I’ve been dying to review a song by A23, but that went nowhere. So I put my IPod on shuffle and the first song that it picked I would review (unless I ready reviewed it,)
Lucky for me it randomly landed on “Evil Angel” by my favorite band (right next to Soil and Eclipse and Wumpscut) Breaking Benjamin.
I have a lot of history with this song. It got me addicted to Breaking Benjamin, it inspired a fan fiction which turned into four book series I’ve been working on since the summer of 2008, they’re the reason I got into the Halo games, Ben’s a gamer and they have a song on the Halo 2 soundtrack, (it’s supposed to be in the game as well but Halo 2 hates my computer’s graphics card) and it also gave the determination to own a guitar and (borrow) a drum set so I can learn this song on both instruments, however neither of those things have happened yet, but I have a snare drum, it counts for something…
Breaking Benjamin currently composed of two members, Benjamin Burnley and Chad Szeliga, formed in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania around 1998. The lineup consisted of Ben Burnley and Aaron Fink, (Wikipedia claims that two other guys named Nick Hoover and Chris Lightcap were also in the band but since their website is down I can’t really confirm it.)
Before he formed Breaking Benjamin or Plan 9, Ben earned money as a solo artist playing cover songs. In 1998 Ben moved to California with Aaron, Nick and Chris to try new material and went under the name of Strangers with candy. That didn’t work out at all and Ben moved back to Pennsylvania and formed Plan 9 without Nick because he asked to leave the band after Mark was brought in to play bass. Aaron and Nick were already in a band called Lifer and would have Plan 9 open for them and somewhere along the line they decided to stick with Ben and after a supposed incident where Ben broke someone’s microphone (in an attempt to imitate his lifelong idol Kurt Cobain of Nirvana) the owner supposedly said “I’d like to thank Benjamin for Breaking my fucking microphone,” it gave Ben the idea to claim the name Breaking Benjamin as their band name.
In 2002, the Breaking Benjamin EP sold all 2000 copies and got Hollywood record’s attention leading to the release of Saturate a year later. We Are Not Alone came out in 2004 and had three songs with Billy Corgan’s name attached to it. Ben teamed up with Billy of Smashing Pumpkin’s fame and those three songs he helped write are “Rain,” “Forget it,” and “Follow.” However all was not good in the world of Breaking Benjamin, their current drummer at the time, Jeremy Hummel had left the band for personal reasons (but then came back for a brief amount of time) only to be fired a short time later. He then sued the band in 2006 because he claimed he did not receive any payments for making We Are Not Alone. The lawsuit didn’t drag the band down however, they had a guy named Kevin Soffera fill in for Jeremy while he was on leave for his personal reasons, and then when he was fired. Kevin’s duties as replacement drummer came to an end when they hired another Ben nicknamed B.C. Vaught to fill in until they hired Chad Szeliga.
Phobia, the album that introduced me to Breaking Benjamin if my memory is correct (Firefly and Polyamorus are on the game Smackdown Vs. Raw the 2004 game, I don’t remember when I first played it but I never really paid any attention to the game music but I remember enjoying Firefly.) Since I never really cared for the game music it’s safe to say that Phobia was my first real taste of the band and I loved it. This album was the first of a few albums I had in the beginning of my alternative rock phase of music in my life.
*Random side note it also came out around the time I was in middle school…*
The two singles off the album, Diary of Jane and Breath were my favorite two songs for a while, and since I’m slow it was at least a year after owning the album that I actually listened to the whole thing. My life changed forever after hearing the awesome that is Phobia. Breath was their first number one single on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and the music video for it is a live concert at the Stabler Arena in Bethlehem Pennsylvania. The album went RIAA platinum on May 21st 2009.
Phobia received the name of Phobia due to front man Ben Burnley’s long list of phobias. Ben is scared of just about everything and one of those fears is flying and that’s why the “Intro” song features sound effects of an airport. The album was re-released in 2007 and reentered Billboard 200 at 38. There’s a Collector’s Edition DVD released in 2007 as well which contains their performance at the Stabler Arena.
Fun Facts time!
According to Wikipedia, Evil Angel was one of the first songs Ben wrote for the album and the song Topless (another song I might review) has been a fan favorite since they formed. Originally titled “Top of the World,” it was written and performed before Breaking Benjamin released Saturate. Diary of Jane and Breath were covered by The Vitamin String Quartet (an awesome Los Angeles band known for their tribute albums for Rock and Pop acts. They’re really good.)
So a few paragraphs ago I mentioned the band has two members now. Phobia had four, we are not alone had four as well as Saturate. Well the other members were fired. After Phobia another album called Dear Agony was released and this was also the time period where Ben finally sobered up for good in fact he wrote the whole album sober, but he has long lasting damage from the drinking. (Ben worked with Jasen Rauch from Red on this album, he helped with “I Will Not Bow,” “Hopeless,” “Lights Out,” and “Without you.”) I will Not Bow is in the movie Surrogates (which I haven’t seen yet but I will soon) and for touring they did a short tour of half the united states and then joined Thee Days Grace’s tour with Flyleaf. (It was my first Breaking Benjamin Concert. It was the best thing ever.)
Then their greatest hits album happened and shit went crazy.
Ben’s a perfectionist in my opinion, if it’s not good enough it probably won’t make it on to the album, although he did say in an interview I watched “if I’m not happy with a lyric I’d take a shot and I’d be okay with it” (on the topic of drinking and how it affected his work or something of the sort.) However, on The Shallow bay: The Best of Breaking Benjamin album there’s a remix of Blow me away by some girl named Valora. It was released on June 7th 2011 and Ben wasn’t too happy about it. He wasn’t happy because the remix was terrible and he was never approached about approving the remix which he wouldn’t have in the first place because it’s horrible. Aaron Fink and Mark Kelpaski as well as some people from the label decided the song was great and put it on there anyway. Ben promptly fired Aaron and Mark and then sued them for 250,000 in damages and exclusive right to the Breaking Benjamin name. I don’t know why he didn’t sue Valora either because she obviously didn’t have the full band’s permission to touch the song…
So that’s what happened to the other two members of Breaking Benjamin. They’re on hiatus until the lawsuit ends and he finds two new members for the band.
(Personal letter to Ben Burnley:
If you ever do stumble upon this or someone shows it to you, first off I’m a huge fan. I owe you a hug for your awesomeness and I’m sure all of the fans miss your forums as well as the fan club. I really do hope to meet you some day to tell you in person how much you’ve made an impact on my life. Keep being the amazing rocker that you are and I hate the remix of Blow me away just as much as you do.)
I’ve put off the review for about six pages now. I’ve wanted to review this song since I started reviewing, so I shall move on to the fifth track from Phobia, “Evil Angel.”
*Fun Fact time:
The song is in ¾ time signature and I didn’t realize it until I got to high school and learned how to figure out the time signature for a song. *
Verse one:
“Hold it together, birds of a feather,
Nothing but lies and crooked wings.
I have the answer, spreading the cancer;
You are the faith inside me.”
I review songs that I love, and I love this song, but I dreaded finding something to say about it because I honestly have no idea what I’m going to say so I’ll wing it from here on out. It’s not Ben’s fault I just suck at coming up with something to say so if I sound like I know what I’m talking about maybe other people will believe me. That’s usually how I get through all my reviews, most of them anyway, but this song is different. It means a lot to me and I am going to actually try to find something to say other than it’s good and nitpick at something to try and be funny. The only thing I can comment on would be the “birds of a feather,” line. I wasn’t sure what “Birds of a feather” meant so I Googled it and it means those with similar tastes congregate in groups. In other words it means that people who have similar likes stick together.
Verse two:
“No, don't
Leave me to die here,
Help me survive here.
Alone, don't remember, remember.”
That verse right there (and the other verse similar to it and the chorus) inspired what became my tribute fan fiction turned book series Evil Angel. I’ve heard the song could be about death and in the music video for Give Me a sign there’s a man walking around a hospital to all the dying patients and he’s the guy on the album artwork for Phobia and it’s rumored he’s the Evil Angel from Phobia. So basically it’s about death, speaking in terms of the album revolving around Ben’s various phobias, Ben has said he doesn’t believe in a person’s time to die and he is somewhat scared by the thought of dying. Then the song makes slight sense but that’s kind of a stretch.
First Chorus:
“Put me to sleep evil angel.
Open your wings evil angel.”
There’s a scream after those two lines. It seems weak at first but trust me it gets better. (I’ll add it here that I am deeply saddened by the fact there isn’t an official music video for this song. It deserves one and maybe someday they’ll make one for it but I doubt it.) But like I mentioned before this seems weak but it’s really not, the full effect of the chorus doesn’t happen until later on in the song.
Verse 3:
“I'm a believer,
Nothing could be worse,
All these imaginary friends.
Hiding betrayal,
Driving the nail,
Hoping to find a savior.”
Verse 4:
“No, don't
Leave me to die here,
Help me survive here.
Alone, don't
Surrender, surrender.”
This is where the part of my brain that makes these elaborate situations for music videos kicks in and epicness happens. That’s probably why I used this song for my tribute to Breaking Benjamin. The original plot was to write about a character with some sort of mental disorder trying to adjust to life after being diagnosed with it and stuff like that… but over the course of time and rewrites I changed quite a lot of plot but kept a lot of the original elements. Ben’s voice in this song is completely different from the others on the album. It’s softer than the other songs but remains as intense as always.
The song sounds like a cry for help. Someone’s dead and trapped somewhere and they’re not happy with where they’re at and the ‘Evil Angel’ left them there. The middle of the song filled with a drum and guitar solo signalizes the panic the person feel once their situation fully dawns on them and then this part happens.
Second Chorus:
“Put me to sleep evil angel.
Open your wings evil angel.
Oh.
Fly over me evil angel.
Why can't I breathe evil angel?”
That repeats once and then the song ends. That right there is what makes the song the amazing thing that it is. What does it mean in context of what I said before about the cry for help, I have no idea and I’ll probably never figure it out only Ben knows the true meaning of the song and he doesn’t like to talk about what the songs mean, he thinks it’ll ruin the experience if he comes out and says it so he lets the fans come up with song meanings. I like his thinking but knowing what he was going for with this song might have helped review it, but that didn’t stop me from reviewing “Breath of Ghosts” over a year ago, and it won’t stop me now.
I have to say something meaningful about the song; I can praise it until I turn blue in the face but if I can’t comment on the lyrics what’s the point. It is clear there’s pain occurring in some form. It’s a song about being hurt and possibly a cry for help from being hurt, maybe a misleading promise lead to something disastrous. I’m not the only one who thinks that because skimming through some comments on songmeanings.net, I seem to be on the same train of thought as some other people. I doubt it’s about a broken relationship or anything truly religious; I can’t really picture Breaking Benjamin writing religious oriented songs. Another comment I noticed is that it’s about Ben’s Alcoholism… which sort of makes sense if it’s about an addiction… actually it makes a lot of sense… If the Evil Angel isn’t a physical person, it’s the temptation of alcohol or any other addictive substance. The song meaning might not be clear at all, but it’s an interesting song from a great album and the world needs to listen to it… not that a significant amount of people even read my reviews but I hope to spread word of this song to as many people as possible.
Hope you enjoyed the first part of my anniversary reviews.
