I think I can make a decent living with album cover art
Two reviews in a row, you didn't expect that, eh? So, by popular demand of exactly one person I decided to write my first and hopefully the last review of a Within Temptation album. Called by many fans their best work, the album Mother Earth is on the table tonight.
Will it's contents satisfy an asshole like me? Can it wash the bad taste I still have after the Delain's last shit of an album? How does it compare to like 4 symphonic metal albums I actually like?
Let's start with the title song Mother Earth and with some pipes (?). My extreme knowledge of instruments is only matched by my MS Paint skills. Soon the typical sympho metal crap follows stretching the instrumental intro over one minute long, but since it's an album opener it's fine to build some atmosphere and stretch (stretching is important kids, respect your joints) the intro.
Thankfully vocals soon follow with quite a high pitch and nice long notes from Sharon, while there's a fast waltz on the violins in the background and surprise- drums aren't as boring as I expected from the band. Thankfully the song is a medium tempo because slowing down & turning down the volume to include some male vocals isn't a great idea for an album opener.
But they made it work and the outro is quite cool too. Sadly I don't have good headphones now but I think the band was angry at the guitarist during the songwriting, I barely hear any.
Ice Queen
Oh hey a song title about my ex girlfriend (comedy gold, everyone stop making comedy- no one will top that shit joke).
Again, a one minute long intro before the vocals enter, but more atmosphere building than just masturbating the symphonic elements so we're cool. Slightly more guitars, but they don't sound well, I have a joke poking out of my pocket but I'll leave it for later. Vocals again the main driving force of the song with top quality singing and emotions in the key moments, especially just before transitions.
It's hard to focus on anything else, mostly because vocals and drums dominate the sound (quite unexpected from a radio friendly band to put so much focus on drums).
A very nice song, short break in the middle doesn't kill the flow as in the previous song, heartbeating-like sound in the outro also fits the theme.
Also worth noting that I don't need to have the lyrics in front of me because Sharon sings very clearly.
Our Farewell
Starts slow with a piano and a violin and soon only vocals follow, again, being the main force of the song. Sharon sings the whole thing slowly with a lot of perfectly delivered long notes, and even though the lyrics don't rhyme or suggest a melody she makes it work without using the extremely annoying way of singing I struggled with yesterday during the Nightwish review.
Oh wow, there's a guitar solo! Still doesn't sound well, so either the mixing guy had a personal beef with the guitarist or the guitarist had this discussion.. wait, before I follow with another shitty joke- they have TWO guitarists in this band? Why? I know a guy that can play all this stuff with one hand and they have four? Maybe I don't know some tragic personal stories about the number of their limbs but damn, now my joke doesn't work as well as it should but I still need to follow up with it as I teased it earlier:
The solo definitely overcheeses the song to the extreme, thankfully the outro is ok with Sharon's great vocals.
Caged
The pipes return with a cheerful and I don't know why, they don't fit the song where Sharon is angry at some dude. But don't worry, nothing fits anything in this song, After Sharon produces a lot of frustration the instrumental pause has a sad tone while afterwards Sharon shows off her operatic millenial whoops along with a choir and later guitars and drums enter with a hard rock transition before pipes come back.
What is this mess? What do You want me to feel? It's shorter than 6 minutes and the mood shifts like 7 times. Definitely shouldn't be placed on a supposedly great album.
The Promise
And now boring over 1 minute long intros come back for absolutely no reason. But I think it's the first medium-fast or fast song so far we get after the intro. But it slows down soon for vocals because Symphonic metal fans apparently can't handle fast tempos all the way through. The song afterwards plays around with pacing to make it sound more epic, but the instrumentals aren't adding much to that idea- drum patterns are boring, transitions are simple and guitars are heavily underused. I expected way more from an 8 minute long "epic" song, it sounds almost like a joke compared to similar songs in power metal bands.
Never-ending Story
Yes, for a second I waited for "aaaah-aaaaah-aaaaaah" but then I figured out it's a different song. Sadly. It's a nice, chill ballad but Limahl definitely nailed it way more with their version.
Deceiver of Fools
Another long one, who can bet there's a 1 minute long intro where nothing happens?
...
Damn it, not only I don't get paid for these but I lost money in a bet, vocals enter at 50 second mark.
And I started falling asleep before something more interesting started happening, losing focus as any novelty I felf in the beginning of the album already faded away. Sharon while having amazing vocals sounds just too similar in the songs and I'm having a Tarja concert flashbacks. The song is much better than The Promise when it comes to transitions and variety, but in The Promise at least was a fast tempo in the beginning to wake me up, here it took 6,5 minutes to shift the tempo to a faster one.
Intro
Hey, at least now they took a 1 minute long intro out of the song and put it as a separate song for some reason. For no reason probably, since previous songs had them built-in.
Dark Wings
And the song is even 4 minutes long, so the above Intro could be well enough put inside and it would change nothing.
The song is a welcome change with a more upbeat tempo and simpler structure at least for a short while since of course any nice, simpler break needs to be ruined around the half of the song and be annoying with Sharon yelling along instrumentals before it slows down for a break.
Then I predict a guitar solo and back for the chorus.. Yup, at least this time the guitar solo actually sounds like something I can't learn in a week.
In Perfect Harmony
Another longer one, at least with a pleasing intro this time, no unnecessary symphonic crap. And Sharon also chilled down with high notes and trying to sound like a phantom of the opera. Chill tones, some simple guitar solos and in general a good album outro.
Ok, finally done with this record, even though the ending was definitely more enjoyable than the middle.
I can totally see why symphonic metal fans like this album- there are high pitched vocals, bunch of opera crap, good use of choirs, rich backgrounds and the guitars are being kicked and peed on just like symphonic metal fans like it. Bad guitars, go back to heavier metal, there is no place for you here!
And I'm ever so glad to say I'm not a symphonic metal fan. I felt quality and fresh air when I started listening to this album, but during the middle the novelty ran out, songs had very little energy, vocals started to sound too similar, especially in places where Sharon wanted to outtarja Tarja. Drums actually got worse as the album progressed, or I lost focus way more than I thought.
There's not much of a concept here, aside of a fitting intro-outro that pack the album nicely, lyrics are good and Sharon's way to sing them is even better, song placement is fine and the general quality of sound is very high, aside of mixing guitars.
It's definitely an album driven by vocals, they get treated way better than everything else in the mix and in the general songwriting. While I don't know the band- with what I've heard here I don't see them making an interesting instumental song.
Vocals: 10+/10
Guitars: 4/10
Bass: not applicable/10
Drums: 7/10
Keyboards: 9/10
Additional scores:
+ well it delivers what the fans want I guess
+ rich backgrounds, bunch of cool sounds used
+ holds up after all that time as I didn't listen to the remaster
+ generally a good quality of mixing and production
+ good lyrics both in quantity and quality
- lack of energy aside of a few hit songs
- bunch of intros everywhere that slow down the momentum of the song and pacing of the whole album
- total tonal mess in Caged
- you can fire one guitarist and the bassist and there will be no difference in sound, trust me.
Final Score: 78%. - Symphonic metal fans will be very happy, pop fans should be rather happy, rest of metalheads will fall asleep somewhere around song nr. 6
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