Sho Fukamachi Online

Song of the Week is “I thought about it first” by Josh Fix, cementing the end of my multi-month Nightwish binge. I particularly love the occasional “advance downbeat” (I’m sure there’s a proper name for that), which is really effective and leaves you waiting for the next one.

The album, Free At Last, is in first place for my Album of the Year 2008.

Download (MP3, 10.8M)

Lyrics after the break (transcribed by me – I guess someone has to do it first).

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Since I’m obviously just posting every song from Nightwish’s 2004 album Once one by one, why not continue with another favourite from that brilliant album.

Today’s is Nightwish – The Siren (M4A, 34.4M)

This is Nightwish at their theatrical best – some might find the lengthy instrumentals offputting, but to me the strong imagery carries the song, and the story, forward perfectly. I personally find the chorus of this song, especially the second time around, to be incredibly aurally pleasing – a complex, evocative, multi-layered progression of sound.

Lyrics after the jump, although knowing them is unnecessary and, if anything, detracts from this kind of song.

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Apologies to those whose throats I’ve already forced this song down, but I really love it. Perhaps Nightwish’s most accessible song yet.

Amaranth – Nightwish (M4A, 28.4M)

Lyrics after the jump.

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Moving to England, and a more poppy (and well-produced) sound. This is a perfect 3 1/2 minute pop song, distinguishing itself with excellent lyrics (which I personally really like – rare for me!) and musical sequences innovative for the genre. Sometimes, the charts do get it right, and MIKA’s solo debut album was deservedly popular.

My Interpretation – MIKA

Lyrics after the break.

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Continuing my run of one-man American power pop auteurs, here’s Roger Joseph Manning Jr. with The Quickening, the killer first track from his surprisingly excellent album Catnip Dynamite. Which is only available in Japan, a fact I am not sure what to make of.

Anyway, it’s another Queen-meets-ELO blast from the future past, and has a fucking synth solo, which basically guarantees I like it. Hope you do too.

The Quickening (mp3, 7MB)

No lyrics for this one – we’ve now dug so deep into obscurity that I cannot find them anywhere.

No kidding on the “excellent” comment, either – barring any surprises this album is a strong (top 3) contender for Album of the Year.

Running about 6 months late with the new music here, but this one has to go up, better late than never. From Josh Fix, who basically sounds exactly like Freddie Mercury, comes yet another bombastic rock production – I can’t tell whether I like the actual song, or I’m just ecstatic that someone, somewhere, is still making music like this.

As anyone who knows me could attest, I’ve been incredibly down on American music for the last .. well, decade. After a brief explosion of creativity in the early 90s, the mainstream sound has degenerated into endless derivative Creed/Maroon 5 sound-alikes; not my taste at all. Some of the hiphop has been good, but that too started to sound awfully formulaic and most of the innovation has been in the production. There’s no dance output worth the space on one’s iPod and the “alternative” is anything but. Local bands might sound great to the drunken punters at a bar in Boston but don’t cut it compared to the global and historical corpus.

So I’m still down on American music, but like all things American, the average is low but the peaks are high, and one thing that America does seem to do well is produce these “auteur” types who get all depressed, get hepped up on goofballs, go hide in their house for a few years and then come out with some self-produced opus which happens to be fucking amazing. These albums are inevitably one-offs and the artists never live up to their debut. I’m thinking Bryan Scary, Jonny Polonsky, and now Josh Fix. There are probably more; they’re hard to find. My tastes seem to be so dissimilar to the US “music media” that they’re useless for finding new music; I have to rely on “carpet bombing”, serendipity and “guided randomness” in locating new music in an opaque market. Anyway.

This song starts like Radiohead circa “Iron Lung” (ie the last time I liked them), turns into Queen meets ELO, all made in LA in 2008. Awesome. Lyrics after the jump.

Josh Fix – Whiskey & Speed (mp3, 14.5M)

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To celebrate Nightwish’s promotion to a probation A-list band, I’ll celebrate by uploading their 14-minute track The Poet and the Pendulum, the bombastic, overblown, teen-poetry-esque but very enjoyable first track from their most recent album.

The Poet and the Pendulum – mp3, 32M

If 14-minute Finnish symphonic power metal rock operas aren’t your thing, I recommend this previous post of a 15-minute Japanese symphonic power metal rock opera, still available.

Lyrics after the break for those who love to sing along!

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Song of the week is from the “new” Bryan Scary album, Flight of the Knife.

Imitation of the Sky

I’ve been on a bit of a new music spree recently, having gotten sick of everything I had, so expect a mini-flood of “songs of the week/day/hour”.

By the Black Mages, from their newest album, The Black Mages 3, and is an adaptation of The Opera of Maria and Draco from Final Fantasy 6.

If you are a fan of 15-minute Japanese Rock Opera, click here for heaven. (35M) Also you can find some translated lyrics here.

The rest of the album, unfortunately, is not up the standard of The Skies Above to my ears. Maybe it’s just because I don’t personally like the songs chosen but I feel the ones that were are patchier and less suited to straight rock playthrough than those on TSA. Strange, because there’s a huge wealth of material to choose from – Uematsu can, of course, use whatever FF music he likes, and there’s a *lot* of that. 3 albums and no Chocobo theme? What’s going on!!