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| 31 Concept Albums for May - Week Four
Throughout May, I have revisited 31 select hard rock or metal concept albums. These are the concept albums that have moved me the most over the last 25 years (give or take). Or conversely, they are concept albums that I have long desired to expend further study upon. Some of these albums will be quite familiar to most of you – others maybe less so. Below, I aim to provide a high level summary of “my take” or interpretation on their content. Specifically on the key messages I feel are being expressed and received (by myself) through these works of art. Little to no comment will be made on the music itself - there are plenty of reviews for that. | | 1 |  | Dream Theater
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Day 24: See review | | 2 |  | Opeth
Still Life
Day 25: Found a detailed summary of the concept on face-of-melinda.com. This album tells the story of an outcast who was beaten and banished from his hometown by the religious authority/majority - “branded a Jonah with fevered blood, Ungodly freak, defiler”. 15 summers later (“Fifteen alike since I was here”), in the song The Moor, he returns to find his love Melinda, who was left behind. “There is no forgiveness in these eyes for any you but one, dispel the mist for now, Melinda is the reason why I've come”. The Outcast finds Melinda in “crumbling faith” and “bearing her pain in the wilderness” (inferred to be a nunnery) in the track Godhead's Lament. Her location is identified as “stifling grace” in the track Moonlapse Vertigo, from which he desires to save her “from the past”. He meets secretly with Melinda in the song Face of Melinda. | | 3 | | Opeth
Still Life
Day 25 (continued): Although “she had sworn her vows to another” and become a “harlot of God upon the earth”; baffled, she informs him “my promise is made but my heart is thine”. In the song Serenity Painted Death, the religious authority discovers their meeting and hangs Melinda - “red line round her neck, met the earth in silence”. The Outcast appears to have witnessed the hanging, and “her fading, blank stare into me”. “Darkness reared its head”. With “piercing rage, perfect tantrum”, the Outcast attempts to kill all those who murdered her.. Until he becomes “weak and torn” and goes down “drained from strength, flickering breath”. The last track, White Cluster, describes the Outcast's death by hanging the next day. However, he is reunited with Melinda, who appears behind him, in his death - “Cloak captured sighs of relief as the primal touch brought me back, and the last sight I did see is still here beckoning right behind me”. | | 4 |  | Within Temptation
The Unforgiving
Day 26: Starting out as a soundtrack to a large film, the band decided to abandon this idea and instead focus on a transmedia application – including three short films (Mother Maiden, Sinead, and Triplets) and a series of comic books. The three short films tell the following stories. Mother Maiden – An old crone whose role it is to revitalize the select dead to serve a vigilante role. Those resurrected had done bad things or made bad decisions in their past, but were not bad people inherently. The resurrected vigilantes serve to rid the world of corrupt and evil people. Sinead and the Triplets are introduced in brief shots in the film.
Sinead – An estranged young woman shoots her father (or lover?) in an argument, during which her abandoned daughter watches. Killed a year later, she is resurrected by Mother Maiden to fill the vigilante role. | | 5 | | Within Temptation
The Unforgiving
Day 26 (continued): Triplets – A young boy replaces a dead with live grenade, which his sexually abusive adopted father opens while in bed with him. Resulting in both dying. Mother maiden resurrects him, as well as his two alter-ego personalities (the Triplets) to serve the vigilante role. The imagery in the CD case and booklet, as well as the content in the deluxe version DVD follow the concept of the vigilantes – focusing primarily on the heroin Sinead. | | 6 |  | The Ocean
Pelagial (Instrumental)
Day 27: I purposefully listened to the instrumental version, as the band had indicated that subtle sound effects (as the album progresses) were more apparent without the vocals. This album takes the listener on a journey, complete with bubbling sound samples, to the deepest depth of the ocean. The first track (Epipellagic) is light and airy, as if you were surrounded by sea life and sunlight near the ocean surface. From there, each song of the album becomes a hair denser (and more tense) as you progress downward to depth. During this journey, there are flourishes sprinkled throughout the songs – almost reminding one of the awe of viewing the ocean around you. In addition, more sounds and samples begin to fill the tracks. The last track (Benthic) contains a dissonant and steady heavy riff, indicating you have reached the bottom. | | 7 |  | Mastodon
Leviathan
Day 28: Apparently, Drummer Brann Dailor was on an elongated plane trip with nothing to read except Herman Mellville's novel Moby Dick. As Remission was fire-themed, Mastodon was envisioning a water theme for the new album . Thus, the band decided to base the album loosely off the novel Moby Dick, including the sailor (Captain Ahab) and the white whale (the sea salt Mastodon). The concept was incorporated both into the song titles and lyrics, and into the album artistry. In general, Mastodon envisioned themselves as Captain Ahab, obsessed and mad with their music. Conversely, the whale represented the audience, whom Ahab would go down with. The incredible artistry was done by Paul Romano, whom developed a 52-by-52-inch oil painting of Moby Dick. | | 8 | | Mastodon
Leviathan
Day 28 (Continued): I found a great review by Joshua Chaplinsky at: https://litreactor.com/columns/white-whale-holy-grail. Chaplinsky identifies that the following songs follow the Moby Dick theme: Blood and Thunder (written from the perspective of Captain Ahab and serving as his “rally cry”); I Am Ahab; Seabeast; Iron Tusk (regarding the harpoon and whale killing); and Aqua Dementia (sailor goes “mad from the loneliness of the sea's great expanse” and this is what his hallucination may have been). | | 9 |  | Between the Buried and Me
The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues
Day 29: According to the band, this EP revolves around two different characters (or “Prospects). Each of them exist on separate planes of existence, separated by “billions of light-years and planets”, but have similar lives and “personal dilemmas to confront and reckon with”. “This distant face...Distant life...never before seen”.
In tracks “Augment of Rebirth” and “Lunar Wilderness”, they become “subconsciously aware” of each other through a “weird cosmic energy”. | | 10 |  | Arcane
Known/Learned
Days 30, 31: Honestly, I have been working on a review for this double album for all of May. The general concept of the album is known. According to web references, it describes the “fragmented moments in the lives of a father and his daughter, their loss, their love, their journey”. The loss appearing to be that of the mother during birth of the daughter, as well as perhaps the death of the father later in time. Further, the album contains "shifting timelines" meaning that the story line the individual tracks tell is not linear. Unfortunately, each time I revisit the individual songs, I revise my thinking on their meaning relative to the whole. Although an incredible double album; it has been a frustrating review, to say the least, and not sure when and how I will get it out onto Sputnik yet. | |
Coast
05.31.20 | Love the haunting melancholy of Melinda and that Arcane album | JDubb
05.31.20 | Coast, I had not heard Still Life prior to my review herein. I had seen that several Sputnik users had ranked it in the top 3 of Opeth, if not at the top. I was a bit skeptical. But, I will say that I was floored as to how great Still Life is - perhaps equal to or better than Ghost Reveries (my general favorite). | Coast
05.31.20 | Yeah GR is close to sput fave but Still Life was the album that got me into Opeth. I prefer most pre-GR albums. |
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