Review Summary: An album that lets me appreciate life and the entire planet just based off of it's sheer beauty. I feel like I am on different levels of life when I listen to this and then listen to any other piece of music
Ever since he was discovered by David Foster at the ripe age of 17, Josh Groban has been gracing us with his rich baritone vocals. Fast forward to 2003 and we get his multi-platinum juggernaut that is
Closer. During the course of this album, we are blessed with a variety of languages: English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Josh Groban proves why he is my favorite non metal vocalist on this disc.
As I mentioned, this album is spread out with four different languages and is basically split into two parts: the English portion, and the Non-English portion. I personally find the foreign language songs more appealing because there is just something about the beauty of Groban's baritone voice singing in these exotic and gorgeous languages. Now I am not saying the English songs are bad. In fact, some prove to be more beautiful than the foreign ones.
We start off this masterpiece with the stunning
Oceano. The epic orchestration of this song makes this one of the standouts of the whole entire album, and we are just on the first track. The highlight is the chorus. The magnificent music to coincide with Groban's vocals gives me chills every time. Not to mention that Italian is one of the most beautiful languages in the world.
"E' per l'amore che ti do
E' per l'amore che non sai
Che mi fai naufragare
E' per l'amore che non ho
E' per l'amore che vorrei
E' per questo dolore
E' questo amore che ho per te
Che mi fa superare queste vere tempeste"
Whenever I heard this portion sung, I get a weird tingly sensation up and down my spine. As if it couldn't get any better, the translation of this passage is basically about a man who has left his loved one behind and the love this man still has for his loved one.
Now the next two tracks pose a bit of a problem for me. In fact while I am at it, I'll explain my other grievances with the album in the songs Broken Vow and Remember When It Rained. Now these four songs are not terrible at all. In fact the musicianship and vocals are still at a top notch level, but the emotion I receive from these songs aren't like the others on the record. Though
My Confession may be a better executed song musically than
Caruso, the latter gets the edge because of better emotion vocally. The strings fit the Italian language so beautifully.
The remaining tracks are some of the most gazing, beautiful, emotional, exotic, and enthralling slabs of music ever arranged onto a single disc. These tracks are the reason this album gets a 5 from me.
Si Volvieras a Mi starts off with a guitar that gives off an excellent Spanish vibe throughout. I have always been intrigued by the Spanish giving vibes of a guitar and this song doesn't make my opinion any different.
Per Te is another marvelous Italian song and
Hymne a L'Amour shows that the French language can be just as beautiful.
When You Say You Love Me is a song that stands in the level of Celine Dion cheesiness. While being cheesy, this is extremely beautiful. Aside from Kamelot's Abandoned, there hasn't been a song that made me shed a tear or two more times than this song.
Actually, scratch that last sentence I have. There is a song that has given me more teary eyed emotion and it's on this disc.
You Raise Me Up just might be the most beautiful song ever. The feeling that passes through my entire body when I hear this is only matched by a few songs (i.e. Poet and the Pendulum, Abandoned, Ruska, and Trains). The uilleann pipes play as much a vital role as anything else for a majority of the song. When we reach the middle of the song though, we get the greatest chorus that has been sung in almost impossible to describe with words. The only way I could describe it would be like someone is rising up into the heavens and the angels are gloriously singing. This song makes me feel appreciative of life and the whole entire planet in general.
In fact, this entire album makes gives me the feeling
You Raise Me Up does. The only album that makes me feel as appreciative and alive would have to be A Flame From The Ground Beneath from Lost Horizon. Musically this album is a modern classical masterpiece. Vocally, I haven't heard a better performance for the whole duration of an album quite like this one.
Closer is one of the best albums that I have ever heard, and is the best non metal album I've heard. Listening to this again four and half years after I first heard it, I appreciate it more so than I did the first few times. Understanding this lyrically and implying the themes of the songs into my life will make this album stand the test of time.
