Welcome to the first in-season edition of the Monday Music Medley.
Today we're starting off with a song from Finnish metal band Insomnium (awesome name), a band I have the good fortune of seeing live in concert in only two short weeks from now. This song, the eponymous song from their album In the Halls of Awaiting, is a bit long at just over 10 minutes, but absolutely worth the time invested. After a slow, quiet start, the band ramps up the musical tension with killer riffs and atmospheric synths. The growled vocals are premium quality, deep and steady and not incomprehensible. By the end of the song, when we reach the oh-so emotional outro, I'm always a bit choked up. This is "In the Halls of Awaiting" by Insomnium.
"The black of the night turns to dusk of the dawn / Through the mist now shines the fairest light of all / The caress I've waited for eternity / Into the shades, together we fade"
Next is one of my favorite songs from American indie group Modest Mouse, from what is probably their best (or at least one of their two best) albums, The Moon and Antarctica. This song, "Gravity Rides Everything" is a meditation on impermanence and the effect that the natural world has on us, including the incredibly heartbreaking lines "When we die some sink and some lay / But at least I don't see you float away."
To lighten the mood up a bit, how about some joke rap? This next song, courtesy of now defunct Queens-based rap duo Das Racist, is a parody of the sappy subgenre of romantic rap wherein rappers will profess their admiration for a woman. The subgenre here is mocked with purposefully stupid, vapid lyrics such as "Girl – you’re really cool / Smart – that’s good at school / Pretty – you’re beautiful / And I heard you got a pool"
This is "Girl" by Das Racist.
Next is a track from psychedelic/trance outfit Hallucinogen, a song that quite literally melts my mind whenever I listen to it. Also the title is awesome. This is "Orphic Trench." When 2:45 rolls around, don't be alarmed if you feel like flailing wildly around your room.
And last of all, I want to finish up with a small tribute to the recently departed Walter Becker of Steely Dan by including Steely Dan's landmark song "Do It Again." "Do It Again" is a quintessentially American song because it explores a theme central to the American experience: the belief that we control our own fortunes and make our own luck.
