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| Epics (part The First)
Something I've been kicking around in my head for awhile, I'm sure this list is the first in a series on songs that, to me, embody epic. To clarify what I mean a little, these aren't all necessarily the longest songs by their respective bands (some of them are actually pretty short). At the same time, I've got a friend who describes practically everything even remotely decent as "epic," which can get irritating. So hopefully I've found a middle ground, where lengthy but enthralling noodle-work and more concise dynamism coexist. As I said, in no way is this list complete, and suggestions are definitely welcome. | | 1 | The Rolling Stones
Gimme Shelter
It might be that menacing opening riff, underlaid with almost ghostly background vocals, but there's just something about this song that makes it a prime example of all the power that can occupy a four-and-a-half minute tune. Sure, other Stones songs like "Sympathy for the Devil" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" may have this beat in both length and dynamic instrumentation, but the sheer apocalyptic spectrum of "Gimme Shelter"--from Keith Richards' iconic riffing, to Mick Jagger's (purposefully?) slurred vocal delivery, to the piercing, devastating, and thoroughly believable guest performance by Merry Clayton--is what really elevates it among its peers. | | 2 | Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Blaise Bailey Finnegan III
To be fair, virtually any Godspeed track that isn't on Yanqui U.X.O. could fit very comfortably on this list. But why BBF3 has remained such a perennial favorite of mine is that it takes the elements that Godspeed fashioned into cliches (bizarre spoken word passages, interweaving melodic lines, super-slow-build dynamics, just-this-side-of-cacophony crescendos) and put them into one sprawling yet cohesive whole. In contrast to many of Godspeed's other standout tracks (and there are many), BBF3 seems to avoid relying on the suite-like composition (aside from a beautiful string-laden coda, but even that seems an integral part of what came before). Everyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the band knows of the crescendo in the "Sad Mafioso" portion of "East Hastings," or the ten minute exercise in arch that kicks off "Providence," or the armful of such singular moments on "Lift Your Tiny Fists..." Where this song differs is that it is, by and large, one massive offering. Momentary highlights are more difficult to pin down because the entire track is one giant example of what the band would later subdivide into smaller portions. And all this, on a sophomore EP. | | 3 | Opeth
Demon of the Fall
Again, Opeth is a band whose discography is rife with well-qualified entries to this. And, again, much of their other pieces may seem better suited than this. But bias is going to play a part in any selection I make: "My Arms, Your Hearse" is probably my favorite of their albums, and this my favorite of the tracks, if only because it's such a great piecing together of disparate styles and sounds. The way in which this piece transitions from ear-shredding death growl-laden heaviness to melodic overlays to passages ranging from the jazzy and swing-like to the acoustic and ethereal, the scope of sonic material on display here is staggering. And the fact that the band is able to do it in under seven minutes makes it all the *more* epic in my book. | | 4 | Metallica
One
This might seem a cliched choice--and no doubt it is. But as I've defensively said before, there are a reason things become cliches in the first place. They must be doing *something* to earn the reputation. Well, "One" certainly does. Although Metallica's first four offerings (and arguably even their fifth) are pretty much how-to guides on how to write anthemic thrash metal with grit and beauty in equal measure, I think I appreciate "One" due to its thematic and lyrical aspects. While equally-cliched precursors like "The Four Horsemen" and "Master of Puppets" each possess their own distinct sense of depth, the picture painted in "One" is--to me--a far more vivid one, and the interplay between melancholy and fury is aptly mirrored in the musical backing. | | 5 | Iron & Wine
Upward Over the Mountain
Shifting gears just a tad, Iron & Wine is perhaps an unexpected place to go when searching for epics, at least most of the time. But Sam Beam, that lo-fi-whisperer turned indie-fused Doobie Brother has offered quite a selection of emotional arcing songs over the course of his career. "The Trapeze Swinger" rightfully gets a good amount of recognition, but to me it just lacks the emotional resonance conjured by this track from his debut. The chord progressions are simplistic, the rhythms nothing head-turning, but there remains a sense of poignant potency to the entire song simply because of these things. The epic nature of this song comes not from any drastic shifts in tempo, tone, or dynamic, but rather from the uncanny ability this song has to engulf you in the muddy, mourning, yet beautiful world it conjures up. | | 6 | Silversun Pickups
The Royal We
Silversun Pickups is another band who seem to rattle off extended, engaging pieces like it's as natural as breathing, as evidenced by not only nearly the entirety of Swoon, but also as early as their debut EP. In any case, my best explanation of what makes "The Royal We" succeed is perhaps something of a copout, but so be it: the strings. Without them, the track is still a far-more-than-solid modern alt. rock track. But the staccato punctuation they provide early on, and the dynamic flourishes and fills they go on to accentuate the augmented melody with are simply stunning, and really elevate this track beyond its already considerable musical merits. | | 7 | Underoath
Returning Empty Handed/Casting Such a Thin Shadow
One of the things that makes this duo of tracks so fascinating (to me, at least) is the dynamic construction. It begins, interestingly enough, with a frenetic, furious pummeling, and keeps that intensity for the better part of two minutes, until finally showing a glimpse of the melodic motif and restraint that will become dominant in "Casting Such a Thin Shadow." Maybe I'm just not as musically well-versed as I'd like to believe, but this shift in traditional composition--placing what could, from some perspectives, be seen as a climax at the beginning of a song before mellowing it out and developing its more melodic side, is a technique that always seems to grab my interest (Mars Volta do it remarkably on "Cicatriz ESP," and Between the Buried and Me on, well, take your pick). It's almost a tweaked version of arch form, where catharsis comes not through volume, but through melody; by the time the post-rock-like exercises in layering and slow crescendos take the forefront in the latter track, only to be bookended by the harsh and heavy, it's clear that this is something special. | | 8 | Between the Buried and Me
Colors
Speaking of Between the Buried and Me, I racked my brain trying to think of which song of their was the best showcase of their abilities. Sure, there are the standards: "Mordecai," with its blastbeats, roars of anguish, off-time instrumental interplay, and utterly beautiful finale; "Selkies: The Endless Obsession," with its dominant, Crimson-esque progressive vibe (down to 13/8 time signatures), jazzy noodling interludes, and similarly beautiful finale; even "Swim to the Moon" has its own unique blend of rhythmic funk and melodic depth to offer, if you're willing to sift through a great deal of musical confusion. However, more than any of these, I kept returning to all the highlights of Colors, and finding myself stumped at how to separate them. How does the piano conclusion of "White Walls" work without the intro in "Foam Born" (itself the part of a two-track series), or, better yet, the anthemic, key-changed mirroring in "Ants of the Sky"? How does the opening barrage of that song work without the counterpoint provided by the conclusion of "Sun of Nothing"? How can "Prequel to the Sequel" achieve its full effect if the heady, virtuosic bass solo of "Viridian" is shaved off the end, and how can that song do likewise without the propulsive climax it reaches in the syncopated beginning of "White Walls"? Short answer: it can't. None of it can. And so, including an entire album is cheating. But it's the only way to fully display the amount of elaborate melodic and harmonic planning and reflection utilized by the band. It's the only way to make the contrasts and catharses work. In short, it's the only way these songs (this song?) should be heard. | | 9 | Explosions in the Sky
Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
Moving back to the realm of post-rock, Explosions in the Sky receive a fair amount of criticism for a following a rather set template, one that no doubt features some of the elements I attributed to Godspeed earlier on. Theirs is a sound driven by dynamic build-up, no doubt about it. But what is perhaps unjustly overlooked when judging Explosions in the Sky is the beautiful, interlocking simplicity of their guitar lines. It's easy to label them as ear candy, but far less easy to actually step back and think of the give-and-take that must occur in order for all of these melodic lines to weave within one another. It takes a lot of precision to make things sound this polished, and though that very sound, too, has been volleyed as a criticism of the band, I myself find it difficult to knock down what would very likely take me years to do. "Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean," along with every other track on The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, represents all that makes Explosions great, and all that they are hated for. What sets this song apart, primarily, is the lyrical content. That might be an unusual phrase for an instrumental song, but it's the one I've landed on; dedicated to the crew of the K-141 Kursk submarine, the title of the song reverberates throughout its wordless runtime, informing every last note with a sense of poignant loss. It takes a horrific event, and through its musical focus, crystallizes it with moody yet momentous guitars, fittingly militaristic drums, and perhaps more aplomb and grace than any words ever could. | | 10 | Mew
Comforting Sounds
Another example in the power that can come from simplicity, Mew's 9-minute opus is a crowning achievement in its marriage of pop accessibility and sprawling, instrumental orchestration. For its first third, the song largely follows the verse-chorus-verse-chorus format, and perhaps its most interesting feature is its rather straightforward eighth note melody. Then, suddenly, this melody is added to both rhythmically and instrumentally, and the final five-plus minutes of the song devoted to a still somewhat simplistic but unrelentingly catchy showcase for guitars, strings, horns, and an almost ghostly technology-tweaked vocal line, all driven by the propulsive energy of a steady, never showy drum part. If any of this sound tiresome, well, it should. It should be. But it isn't. | | 11 | fun.
At Least I'm Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)
Perhaps the best explanation I can give for this song's inclusion is the fact that when I first heard it, I thought it was a lot longer than it actually was. At first glance, that might sound like a negative, but it's not. There is an interesting tendency music has to play with time, perhaps mostly due to its inconsistency. In contrast to songs like the aforementioned BBB3, wherein 18 minutes blow by in what seems like a fraction of that, fun.'s jaunty little number about youth, love, and music has the opposite capacity, but the same effect: it makes the song into an entity outside of its actual self, able to transcend the traditional understandings of its construction. In less pretentious terms, songs like this are able to envelope you and take you to their own world; once you've returned, you may be surprised to find that nearly twenty minutes has passed, or that it's only been four. But in either case, the music was able to carry you off, and make you forget about what's happening around it. Now, was this fun.'s intention? Tough to say. If I had to guess, I'd say no. They probably set out to write a scathing yet bubbly character study about forgetting where you came from, masking deeply malcontent lyrical themes in sunny indie-pop arrangements. And they've succeeded. At that and so much more. | | 12 | The Receiving End of Sirens
Pale Blue Dot
And so, to fittingly conclude this first entry, there's this. Although The Receiving End of Sirens' The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi is arguably like Colors in that it's necessary to hear the entire album in order to get the full effect, it's easier to highlight individual songs because it's less fluid musically. With that said, "Pale Blue Dot" is only one of many moments of auditory accomplishment served by the album, but it is perhaps the best culmination of all the work done. As it functions on a conceptual basis, the lyrical throwbacks throughout the track are excellent in the sense that they avoid the pitfall of being pretentious and self-referential for their own sake, but rather operate in such a way that thematically enhances the current song without distracting from it. At the same time, the sincerity with which the entire thing is sung is perhaps what truly qualifies it for its position here. All the poetry in the world is worth nothing without a strong (read: believable) voice to recite it, and fortunately there's not a weak word or note to be found here. The anguish, the regret, the longing, the sickness; all of these themes populate the album as a whole, and all of them arguably come to full fruition on the penultimate track, "The Heir of Empty Breath"; but still, it is "Pale Blue Dot," the after-the-fact coda of sorts, which truly embodies the beauty of the work. Listen to it with headphones, from front to back, and hopefully you'll know what I'm trying to say. | |
thecheatisnotdead
02.05.11 | Part 2 will probably include Coheed, Mogwai, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Bear McCreary, Murder by Death, Kanye West, and some others. | zarquan99
02.06.11 | Colors description absolutely-fucking spot on | climactic
02.06.11 | yanqui is epic as hell too dude | thecheatisnotdead
02.06.11 | Yanqui definitely has its moments. But I just don't think it's nearly as consistent as their previous stuff. Still a great album though. | crowing51
02.06.11 | Yea can't wait for Coheed. Needs some Dream Theater and Mastodon. | crowing51
02.06.11 | Oh and the song On Impulse by Animals as Leaders. Seriously one of the most epic song I have ever heard in my life. | thecheatisnotdead
02.06.11 | I'll have to give it a listen. And yeah, definitely some Mastodon in the future. | scissorlocked
02.06.11 | fuck this is huge
and I can't imagine Kanye being epic | thecheatisnotdead
02.06.11 | I'll (try to) find a way. |
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