Review Summary: A wonderful album, but is unfortunately plagued by the postlude, overture, and interludes that drag the album down.
I was browsing around on the internet just like any old day, when I decided to go on Wikipedia and research some random bands. This is a habit of mine, and as I sat there that day, I wondered of what band I should look up. I decided to look up The Sound Of Animals Fighting and started reading casually. I clicked on a link to their first album
Tiger And The Duke and read. At the end of the first few paragraphs drifted away into a moments memory, I read the last sentence.
Quote:
On October 12th, 2006 at 10:40 P.M. a bulletin was posted on
the band's myspace page stating that "Tiger and the Duke" is officially out of print.
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I was somewhat shocked, as I had seen it at a local Hot Topic only a week before and searched the internet for a copy. Nothing. I called Hot Topic and asked if they had this album in stock and the voice on the other end replied with a simple “no.” I was disappointed, as I looked forward to having this CD, but I kept putting it off for months.
I got a Hot Topic gift card for my birthday and I went there a few days after I received the card. I looked through the CD section and there it was. The horse that lies drunkenly on the cover of The Tiger And The Duke staring at my face, I happily picked up the last copy of this precious item. I bought it of course and listened to it with glee on the car ride back home.
I popped it in the cd drive of my computer and begin listening. I heard the begging notes of
Overture and the ride continued from there...
The Acts.
The four real songs that make up the “acts” if you can call them, are all spendid. They all feature the voices of Anthony Green (
Circa Survive), Rich Balling, Matt Embree (Both
Rx Bandits), and Matthew Kelly (
The Autumns). Each track has an very definite feel to it, with odd time signatures, complex musicianship, interesting song structures and lo-fi production. The songs are fun and catchy, but not being overly poppy or disposable.
The instrumentation here is terrific, with drums that go all over the place, but still keep a very solid beat. The guitar is fantastic, which features some great distorted technical riffs. The guitar and drums compliment each other fantastically and make the whole record extremely enjoyable. The bass is barely audible and doesn’t really add anything to the song as a whole, but if you were to take it away, you would definitely notice, as the guitar and drums would sound off kilter and almost annoying.
The Vocals here, as said before, are done by multiple people, and are really the highlight of the album. All the vocals are excellently done, and due the the fact that they have so many vocalists, they can do impressive layering. The lyrics aren’t really anything spectacular, but are supposed to tell a story of a mutiny that takes place on a ship.
These songs are very well crafted and are an extremely enjoyable listen.
The Other Songs.
Between every song on this album, and at the beginning and end, there are electronic tracks that make the album flow better and have more of a full album feel. They do add something to the album, as it flows better with these songs, but they are all rather annoying. They don’t really offer anything special, new, or exciting and are just another song that you have to pass through to get to the next “act.” They can be amusing, and do definitely add more flow to the album, but it would be better to have more “acts”
Overall I think this album is fun, but plagued by the postlude, overture, and interludes that drag the album down. This is a must for anyone who enjoys the music of any artist who was involved with this album.
I give it a 4/5.
