Copeland was the first band that I grew to love. I started listening to them when I was in a time in my life when I was content with everything and I was happy. Listening to Copeland always brings me back to those times and I’m sure that they always will. Every song wrote by Copeland is beautiful and full of emotion. Some of their songs are slow and some of the songs are fast, giving you a variety when you decide to pop in an album by Copeland. To me,
Beneath Medicine Tree is the best that Copeland has to offer. There is a large variety within this album but all songs tend to contain images of hospitals and everything that is contained in them. This album was made during a time when the band was going through some hard times but they got out of it and in turn, made a wonderful album.
The Good:
The album starts with the song titled
Brightest. It starts with just a piano and Aaron Marsh’s voice. The melody is written beautifully and Aaron’s voice goes well with the piano and eventually a guitar comes into the mix. It’s a nice start to the album, even though there isn’t really anything special about it. There actually isn’t really anything special about Copeland. They don’t reinvent anything, they just write everything out wonderful and they make nice, relaxing music.
The first of Copeland’s amazing, classic songs come at track three. This track is titled
Priceless and is one of Copeland’s “cute songs”, chances are you’ve probably heard this song on a burnt CD from someone given to someone that they care about.
Priceless is a wonderfully wrote love song everything about it is priceless, like the name suggests.
California is one of Copeland’s epic songs. The song lasts around five and a half minutes and every bit of it is amazing. The beginning of the song is acoustic with a track overlaying that. Everything starts out pretty slow. The lyrics are written about how he misses someone that moved to California. Everything starts out really slow with softly sung vocals. Around a third of the way into the song Aaron is helped with backup vocals and it gives the song an even greater feel. Near the end the drums and the electric guitar come in making the song “the” epic song on the record, excluding
When Finally Set Free.
She Changes Your Mind and
There Cannot Be A Close Second come in after California. You’d think that it would be hard to back up a song like
California but Copeland managed to do it.
She Changes Your Mind and
There Cannot Be A Close Second could easily be compared to
Priceless, a song that appeared earlier in the album. Everything is wonderfully wrote and the lyrics are just amazing and chances are, if you’ve heard these songs, it was probably from a burnt CD that someone gave to someone else.
When Finally Set Free ends the whole album… and it just ends wonderfully. If you are familiar with
underOATH’s
They’re Only Chasing Safety, then you’ll probably think that this song sounds a lot like
They’re Only Chasing Safety’s closing song titled
Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape. The reason is because they were both wrote by Aaron of Copeland. The song starts off with a synth feel and a drum machine in the back. The vocals don’t come in until around one and half minutes into the song. The lyrics are very simple but they hit very well and the vocals go along perfectly with the synth. An amazing way to end the album.
The Bad:
Copeland does have many tracks on this album that are wonderful, however there are songs that I just can’t get into and they seem to pull the album down a little. They aren’t
horrible, they just don’t show Copeland at their fully potential.
Coffee is one of the song that I just couldn’t get into. It starts out very slow and just seems to not go anywhere throughout the whole song. It also tends to get very boring and repetitive. The next track is another one that isn’t too great.
Walking Downtown, while being better than Coffee, isn’t really anything to get too excited about. There are many parts in this song that are great but it just doesn’t seem to stick around and the song falls victim to the repetitiveness of the chorus.
I know that in this review there are some songs that I didn’t mention. They are the “average” songs of the album and they aren’t that great but also, they aren’t bad. If you want to get a song that shows what Copeland is all about, I would suggest
California or
Priceless.
When Finally Set Free is an amazing song but it’s a “one of a kind” song on the album as the others aren’t loaded with that much synth.
I took a completly different writing approach with this review. Depending on the feedback of the two, is the format that I will stick with.
