Just...what the hell is it?

Greetings and salutations my good friends. I hope this blog finds you in good health and spirits. The rainy and snowy Baltimore has somewhat isolated me to the indoors, providing for some quality time with the Xbox 360 and some lovely listening choices. Well besides maiming fellow geeks and 13 year old children who insist on screaming in the microphone with their mouth filled with hardware, I took time to listen to two CDs.
The first of which I won't spend much time on it as it was somewhat covered before. This CD is Rob Zombie's new release, "Live". Which is just that, a CD of a live performance. The liner has no location or date listed which makes me sad. I like to know things like that. The thing is metal works so much better with a crowd. Not that I don't enjoy the art on a recording, but the audience reflects the energy and really brings it out. Not to mention, a band can't do a fade out on a live album, so we get to hear them fully composed out. As some of you know, the fade out, in my opinion, is a huge cop out. The hardest part of composing is the ending, how to finish your idea. Too many bands just let it go and fade out on a loop. This is lame. Anyways. This CD had lots of energy, and the standard primal rage feel the Zombie packs into a show. It was great to recover the fun of a few Saturdays ago with a CD. It is practically the same set.

The second CD that I listened to was by a band I never heard of before. It was recommended to me by my branch manager and friend, Bob. He had heard them on NPR. The group is called "Over the Rhine". It is hard to describe them. The library cataloged it as "Rock". I would put it more in popular. The core of the group is a duo, of a guy on piano and a lovely female vocalist (appearance and voice wise). They add on an unusual combo including bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and some others. The arrangements for the instruments are quite good. They have a New Orleans brass band kind of sound to them, with very smooth, complex chord progressions. The lyrics are very deep, yet simple and have great movement to them. The words themselves are part of the melody, the syllables flow wonderfully. So this brings me to the title. Just what the hell would you classify this music?


Theres a clip of them. Are they jazz? Are they rock? Are they blues? I can't tell you, but they hit something in me. I haven't been excited by a newish band like this since "The Killers". Their flow is something to be envied and studied for my lyric writing in the future.

With the sounds of the Trumpet Child, I end this blog entry with wishes of your A's be 440, and your Allegro to be brisk but controlled. Good evening