Helm wrote:Bigfoot I'm sorry, I didn't notice your comment, I wasn't snubbing you or anything. I'm glad you enjoyed the song. I'm not sure what context you're after... musically if you think about say, early Tiamat (Astral Sleep?) with early Anathema (Serenades) composing music with Psychotic Waltz (A Social Grace) while In The Woods (HEart of the Ages) surveys I think that's pretty close. If these bands aren't familiar to you, I wholeheartedly recommend them, they've been extremely positive influences in my life.
As to background info on the human whys and hows, probably better not publicly because the whole thing is kinda secretive. I believe this is the first time I've put a song of ours on a forum on the internet, but I think of the Corroseum as a safe haven, in a way, heh.
Which reminds me I also listened to the Bigfoot 4 song EP recently and I listened to it again now, here's my thoughts:
First of all I really really enjoy the singer's vocal lines. There's something really direct and melancholic about his range and choices of modulation. The guitarist has kind of a weird tone (is that the psyche influence?) but I appreciate that the mix is such that I can follow all the instruments at the same time. The material is pretty diverse actually and though I do note some songwriting lag during 'Medicine' it may be more attributed to my tastes than anything.
The most important thing I get from this material is the impression that the impulse that lead to the music is something human and real and that's hard to not be charmed by regardless of the conventions (or lack of) of the material.
Am I wrong to feel that the cementing influence here is 70's hard rock and proto-metal like Grand Funk, Cactus, Sabbath et al? I don't know if it's on purpose but this sort of music roundaboutly seems informed by the grunge thing of the mid 90's, I mean this can stand next to Soundgarden pretty well and I get a similar vibe from Alice in Chains, is that intentional?
I really think that - if that was your intention - this sort of music could appeal widely to people though I'd have my reservations on the guitar tone. I think a more conservative rhythm guitar tone might have helped in that direction but if you don't care about 'being played on the radio' then keep the flat bass-high treble gain guitar tone, it gives an extra charm to the whole thing.
The singer is a bit flat on 'Medicine' but not to an annoying degree. Usually when a singer is off-note and you add lots of reverb to it (as in this case) the slight detuning is compounded,you know what I mean? Something to keep an ear out for. Generally 'Medicine' is my least favourite track because of the psycheout 'empty space' feel in the verses. Sounds like a jam a band does when they first get together, you know?
I'll listen to more bands in this thread soon, good to see it resurrected.
Helm, no worries, i had forgotten all about this thread and certainly didn't feel snubbed that you hadn't replied until now. In regards to the song you posted, i enquired about the scope of the music as i had no frame of reference for this type of style at all. At the time when all these "new" sub-genres came about (Grind/Black/Death/Pagan/Metalcore/Whatever-the-hell-they're-calling-it-this-week metal), i was losing interest in what passed for the whole Metal scene, and started instead seeking out older stuff that had passed me by. The whole growly style of singing just turned me off of investigating most of the Metal music that came out from the early to mid '90's altogether. Although i'm more tolerant of that vocal style nowadays i still love to hear singers who can sing.
The thing that impressed me most in the song you posted was the scope and breadth of it's sound, it managed to sound epic and intimate at the same time, which is a very neat trick!
Many thanks for the reference points and recommendations, i'll certainly give some of them a listen. I'm sure i heard In The Woods at some point in the past and thought they might be worthy of further investigation, so i may start there.
Thanks for your considered in depth opinions of my band's EP too, it's always interesting to me to get an outsider's perspective as i often feel too close to the music to view it objectively. Thanks for the (mainly) kind words on my singing, and my choice of vocal lines, that's something i work really hard on, so it was nice to have it noticed. As for your comments about the guitar tone, we actually felt that the sound had been neutered somewhat by the mix, it sounded so much rawer in the studio than it did after the mixdown. Yes, "Medicine" is a bit of a sprawl, fair comment, when we play it now it's far shorter, back then we used to use it as a song where we could stretch out and improvise live. I've got a 14 minute live version somewhere on cd-r with a spontaneous (dub) reggae mid-section that really cooks!
I can certainly hear the reference points you attribute to our sound, (although i doubt the other guys in the band have ever heard Cactus or Grand Funk), we all have
very different tastes. If memory serves, the only common bands in our record collections are Frank Zappa, Sex Pistols, Slayer, Sabbath and Creedence Clearwater Revival!
I'll put up some of Bigfoot's recent material if there's any interest, as our sound has progressed in the 5 years since that EP significantly.
Thanks again for your considered critiquing Helm, i appreciate you taking the time.
), and when it comes to Doom Metal I am mostly not a fan of Messiah style vocals, though Lowe on 'Through the Darkest Hour' is perfection, and the vocals here are better than say Matravers or Ingram of SOLSTICE. I really enjoyed the lead section on 'Wings of Suffering' and the ending is -beautiful-. Did you do more stuff? I certainly like this much more than for instance the Swedish SORCERER.
in 2000 which can be downloaded here:
Another thing I love is the acoustic guitar and have made a few demo recordings of various material, and, the latest thing was from 2007 just a demo of two tracks, I'm not going to explain the idea behind any of it cos it feels a bit pretentious doing so, but here; The Path of the Flaming Sword 'EP':
