Song Review of the Day
Sister Awake by The Tea Party
To tell the truth, this is really the first real song that I listended from TTP. I quite often gotten attatched the visuals that were in the music video because they were so archaic and almost border on the occult. Much like something out of a Hellraiser movie, but with David Lynch stylings.
Sister Awake was one of the band's staples of their live sets, if anything it's a must. From the Edges of Twilight (EoT) album it's basically one of the songs that stood out supremely, both as a single but more of as an anthem for TTP at the time of their release. If any song were to encompass what type of music TTP played, it would be this song. However due to the more melodic and electronic albums after their EoT release, I feel that it's no longer a way to properly bundle all of TTP's music into this one song.
However I digress. The matter being is that if I were to describe this song in one word...it would be epic. It's pretty massive for an average song clocking in over 6 minutes, it has a small intro comprising of a, what I would imagine, 12 string guitar and a wind/piano instrument of some sort. It eventually goes through a small instrumental bridge/solo with banging drums of Middle Eastern origin before leading into the bulk of the song.
The composition is great thereafter. A blend of Middle Eastern instruments and rock that leaves a smoky feeling in your mind, almost like a trudging through the depths of your psyche. The lyrics touch on religion and just the plain human condition, and unlike my previous review of Temptation this song is truly smart and lyrically sound.
Martin's voice really keeps a steady pace here, there's no drastic range changes in his vocals aside from the gentle step by step rise in intensity from the beginning to end. To tell the truth, the song could be percieved as slow, especially when I sing it to myself, but when you have so much going on in this song, that is a luxary you can afford.
The live potential differs from concert to concert. Recently Martin has adapted for a more agressive approach, no longer really "hissing" "Sister" in the music, but opted for a more loud bellow. This was greatly welcomed since it provided a balance of being more active in the concert setting. However it was even more recently that Martin decided to bellow out the second and third verse as opposed to his more gentle tone in earlier sessions. It's probably a wise choice in general to appeal more to the rock fans, but not to me since it then loses it's original appeal.
Personally I've been pretty much attatched to the Muchmusic's "Intimate and Interactve with TTP" as a peak for most of their songs they played there. It was a small setting for which they can play more to the original incarnation on CD with a beautiful guitar solo in the latter more rocking part. But it highly depends if they decided to go through with more rustic instruments or more electronic ones.
Sister Awake is a song that TTP can play with. Martin now seems to ad-lib a few things to "Awake the Sisters of the crowd" now, which
is good for him to come out of his proverbial shell.
The plus part is when he really does have fun, during the middle part where the guitar solo would usually be he might belt out a small cover of a song. Songs ranges from a guitar rendering of Paint it Black to Bowie's Heros, to even a few words from their other song Pulse. MM's Sand Job 2000 rendition was really really good on the part of playing Heros although poppy, very well done.
So personally aside from the fairly lack of originality now in playing the song I give Sister Awake
4.9/5.0 stars.
Sister Awake by The Tea Party
To tell the truth, this is really the first real song that I listended from TTP. I quite often gotten attatched the visuals that were in the music video because they were so archaic and almost border on the occult. Much like something out of a Hellraiser movie, but with David Lynch stylings.
Sister Awake was one of the band's staples of their live sets, if anything it's a must. From the Edges of Twilight (EoT) album it's basically one of the songs that stood out supremely, both as a single but more of as an anthem for TTP at the time of their release. If any song were to encompass what type of music TTP played, it would be this song. However due to the more melodic and electronic albums after their EoT release, I feel that it's no longer a way to properly bundle all of TTP's music into this one song.
However I digress. The matter being is that if I were to describe this song in one word...it would be epic. It's pretty massive for an average song clocking in over 6 minutes, it has a small intro comprising of a, what I would imagine, 12 string guitar and a wind/piano instrument of some sort. It eventually goes through a small instrumental bridge/solo with banging drums of Middle Eastern origin before leading into the bulk of the song.
The composition is great thereafter. A blend of Middle Eastern instruments and rock that leaves a smoky feeling in your mind, almost like a trudging through the depths of your psyche. The lyrics touch on religion and just the plain human condition, and unlike my previous review of Temptation this song is truly smart and lyrically sound.
Martin's voice really keeps a steady pace here, there's no drastic range changes in his vocals aside from the gentle step by step rise in intensity from the beginning to end. To tell the truth, the song could be percieved as slow, especially when I sing it to myself, but when you have so much going on in this song, that is a luxary you can afford.
The live potential differs from concert to concert. Recently Martin has adapted for a more agressive approach, no longer really "hissing" "Sister" in the music, but opted for a more loud bellow. This was greatly welcomed since it provided a balance of being more active in the concert setting. However it was even more recently that Martin decided to bellow out the second and third verse as opposed to his more gentle tone in earlier sessions. It's probably a wise choice in general to appeal more to the rock fans, but not to me since it then loses it's original appeal.
Personally I've been pretty much attatched to the Muchmusic's "Intimate and Interactve with TTP" as a peak for most of their songs they played there. It was a small setting for which they can play more to the original incarnation on CD with a beautiful guitar solo in the latter more rocking part. But it highly depends if they decided to go through with more rustic instruments or more electronic ones.
Sister Awake is a song that TTP can play with. Martin now seems to ad-lib a few things to "Awake the Sisters of the crowd" now, which
is good for him to come out of his proverbial shell.
The plus part is when he really does have fun, during the middle part where the guitar solo would usually be he might belt out a small cover of a song. Songs ranges from a guitar rendering of Paint it Black to Bowie's Heros, to even a few words from their other song Pulse. MM's Sand Job 2000 rendition was really really good on the part of playing Heros although poppy, very well done.
So personally aside from the fairly lack of originality now in playing the song I give Sister Awake
4.9/5.0 stars.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home