Misc Mekong Delta Raving
Posted by Daniel Lyons Sat, 08 Oct 2005 05:55:08 GMT
I just posted this to the Mekong Delta forums, and I like it, so I’m posting it here. Don’t read it.
I agree with Mars, Principle of Doubt is the finest. But as others have said, there isn’t anything bad in their collection, and I had to fall for Zahn, Dances, Kaleidoscope, and Visions Fugitive first (in that order). (I actually got into MD because of my interest in HP Lovecraft!)
Zahn was the most approachable for me, because it was like other metal, but with this extra ingredient. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Dances had it too, magnified and extended. Kaleidoscope took it and made something different with it, which was something good. To me, Kaleidoscope represents the beginning of the Transition of MD to something else, and then on VF the transition is complete. Kaleidoscope is very much the album that doesn’t fit—but they are masters and they create a masterpiece anyway. A true artist can make art out of his indecision and have it be excellent, and they did, and it is. On Visions Fugitive it was like, look, we transcend death and this is what we actually are. Doug’s vocals are distant and echoey, like an apparition. Listen to “The Healer”... it sounds like a farewell. A beautiful song crowning a beautiful album, crowning a beautiful career of some incredible musicians.
And then I went back and listened to Principle, because I felt like I had missed something. And I had. The secret ingredient here is madness, insanity. I think they make their point most clearly when they are singing about it in Heartbeat on Kaleidoscope: “obscured by all of this complexity/consumed as fuel for even bigger dreams…and the endless sound of moving parts/replaced the rhythm of their strained hearts.” It hit me. They are singing about insanity, specifically the insanity of the modern world.
The theme of the book upon which Principle is based, Lord Foul’s Bane, is just that: a leper trapped in another world he thinks is his delusion, but can’t be sure it isn’t the real reality.
And isn’t that why we’re all here, and there are so few of us? I mean really… most people don’t “get” MD, and they live ordinary lives with no weird aggression, complexities confusing them. But for me, MD is medicine which enables me to see past my anger and remember that, essentially, this world is bafflingly weird and pretty bad. MD reminds me that nevertheless, there are people out there who know this and are going to make the world better, or at least more beautiful, and that helps those of us who know this live with it. In other words, you guys and MD, progressive/technical metal in particular and metal in general. We get the picture.
Principle is their most complex work, because it’s wrought of pure metal but it is quite insane. Like the first album, it’s “just thrash” but like Zahn it’s through the ceiling. Unlike their later works, they had not yet found the boundaries and begun to play with them. They had not yet seen how fast they could go, the heights they could reach within their chosen provinces. The complexity of the songwriting, the riffing, the transitions, all add to the effect. The Twilight Zone theme doesn’t detract from it at all, but adds to it for cumulative effect. The album is about being sane in a world that shouldn’t be and can’t be explained, wondering if you’re actually insane. And that should be familiar to us all.
I think the climax really comes on “The Jester,” where the theme becomes bondage relieved by the acceptance of the madness of the situation and works through retaliation. “I’ll be just what I want to beeee…” The chords are really haunting. It’s a very simple piece compared to “The Curse of Reality” or “Shades of Doom.” But in it is the kernel, the essential truth, of everything MD.
(In my opinion…)
Thanks, you guys rock!
