The Benja-man Is Verbose

The way time fell this week, I ended up listening a third time before getting around to writing anything up.  Hence the minor break from the usual format of real-ish time reactions to spins #1 and #2.  Hey, as long as I do three posts on Sleep Well Beast , the overall approach to blogging about a record as I absorb it remains the same. I remember when the third listen was a bit of a task for some of the early National records.  It was exciting to be done with listen number three of the self-titled, so I could stop writing about it and listen to something else.  (As mentioned before, three is my usual magic number before I say I "know" a piece of music; the stuff that clearly isn't for me might not survive on my list to even make it to three spins, of course.)  I don't think I ever had any doubt that Sleep Well Beast would be getting at least four, and more likely five or six full runthroughs before I'll be satisfied that I've gotten everything I wa

I'm going with the track listing from the brand new 2024 remaster, rather than the original order.  Prepping to write this post is the first time I'd ever listened to the songs in the new sequence, so let's see how it sounds that way. Track One:  "Shadowplay" Damn, I like the guitar part on the verses.  Given how impressive the chorus is, it says something that this is the part that jumps out.  I also like the chorus too.  Since we're all prog, the structure of "Shadowplay" goes mid-tempo intro, then shimmery chorus, then menacing verse/prechorus, then after a couple verses there's a solw fade out into a chanting repetition, and then a bridge, and then the final chorus is a different tempo as more of a Pink Floyd swirl of sound than a melody.  It takes skill to take a song that would be so powerful as a straight pop-rock song and build it into something more epic.   I guess this a slow-grower because I always knew this was a good song, but it'

Pushing the "play" button * on Sleep Well Beast  brought certain... well, I don't know if "expectations" are the right word because music that's totally new is an unknown without definite expectations.  Still, I've listened to a lot of National records for the first time and tried to provide a spot reaction.  There have been things they've had in common.  So yeah, there are certain things I figured I would be hearing.  Let's go with that. Expectation:  Minor variations on a theme, but basically would sound like the National Reality:  More or less, merits more discussion below. Expectation:  First track will be a slow one with a mumbled melody that builds Reality:  "Nobody Else Will Be There" is structured the way I'd expect the first track on a National record from 2017 to be built, yet it sounds a little different.  Maybe it's the vocal delivery - I did wonder whether it was even Matt singing.  Maybe it's the somewhat irri

Over the last few records Eluveitie has shed basically its entire non-Chigrel membership other than bassist Kay Brem, who becomes the official longest tenured non-Chigrel member of the band both in terms of number of albums and number of calendar years (as of this writing, he has yet to quit or be fired...).  On the one hand, introducing the world to a whole bunch of new members with an Evocation record seems jarring, but on the other, maybe that's the way to do it, especially with a section of the fans yammering about how they found the folk elements so lacking on the post- Slania metal records.   Anyway, say hello to Alain, Fabienne, Michalina, Matteo, and perhaps most importantly, new rhythm guitarist Jonas Wolf.  Not only is Jonas expected to be the engine for the metal side of the band the way his predecessor Ivo was, and not only does he very quickly get a lot of song co-writer credits under his belt the way Ivo did, but he was apparently the one who advocated for Fabienne, h

Ah, 1989.  Or 1990, by the time the thing finally came out, for big record company reasons.  The days when Fish could get a release on a major label and have number-one singles, and there was some delusion in the air that he could even be Marillion-"big," let alone rock-star big.  Meanwhile the man himself was publicly playing out the usual dissonance between wanting to be adored by the masses (and financial security) and wanting to have more of a private life and a career where he could do small clubs and meet fans eye to eye.  The market would soon force the issue...    I may make a half-hearted attempt to keep track of the cast of characters surrounding Derek, but the discography from here on is very much a "solo career," in the sense that it's one guy and some players that he works with.  The different tracks on each record usually have different people on them, and the touring band may not always be the ones who were on the record.  But for what it

On listen #3 to Trouble Will Find Me , the song that jumped out the most was "Demons."  By listen #4 I couldn't actually remember why it stood out so much.  I did think I had my premise for this essay, though.  Just so I can't be accused of leading the reader along, let's start with that: I was originally going to say that the record is an example of more of the same from a band I like but will never adore.  Except that more listening then led me to... maybe not totally overturn, but definitely tweak that opinion, because I realized that I was selling the record short in a few key ways.  We'll get there.     First, though, "Demons."  I still don't remember exactly why at one point "Demons" seemed like a new level for this band because, well, it sounds like a National song.  I guess Matt commits a little more to going full monotone and there are a few wrinkles, like the way the primary "chorus" is punctuated not by a change in