Dienstag, 4. Okt 2005, 17:26
I'll quickly run over a few things that happened in the last two weeks. These last 2 weeks I had a lot of things on after school, but only a few of these are worth talking about here.
A couple of weeks ago all the 6th formers had to give tours of the school for open evening. I didn't feel like doing this, and me and a few friends ended up going to the history department and passed the time answering peoples' questions. Besides this, we spent the evening joking around, chatting with the teachers, and laughing at some of the lies one of my friends said about the school. (According to him, year 7s take part in swordfights and stuff to help them learn history. The way he kept a straight face telling this to some parents was priceless, if a little worrying).
On the way back, I chatted to someone from my form who joined the school this year. He lives really near to me, but he gets a strange combination of trains so I never saw him outside of school.
We had a good talk, and I feel that I got to know him a bit better.
Film society this Wednesday was really good. We watched 'Goodbye Lenin', which managed to be witty, intelligent and sad (the teacher taking it was crying at the end, much to the disgust of a certain right-wing student present). Before anyone asks I did find it sad, but it didn't move me to tears (although I don't think a film ever has).
Before film club, we went into town to get some food, and I noticed something. On Wednesday, a few of us have started a 'tradition' of wearing black shirts. There were four of us walking back from town with food, and I noticed that we were all wearing black. We all have blue eyes and blond hair and were walking around in an orderly group. I asked if they thought anyone would get the wrong idea about us, and one of them suggested an armband for increased intimidation power.
By Friday of last week, the events after school, and the resultant pile-up of homework meant that I was feeling tired and a bit stressed. I was also lamenting the lack of new music for me to enjoy - it had been ages since my last new cd. I got home, and Silence was there waiting. I had ordered it over a month ago, from a company that promises 10-15 days delivery. (I must say that they have always been true to this, except on this occasion)
I went upstairs and happily listened; but only once. The rest of the weekend was devoted to the dull necessity of homework that had been Neglected in the week.
In the evenings I would listen to Silence. Even if I was tired and hadn't got to bed till gone 11, it had enough energy in it to keep me awake to listen.
Yesterday I loaded it onto my mp3 player, and listened on the way to school, before school, and on the way back. I am listening to it right now, and have listened to it about ten times now.
After a few listens, the album is beginning to come together in my mind, I can say that it is easily up to the standards that Sonata Arctica set with Winterheart's Guild, and it has made my already happy week go even better.
The vocals and harmonies are of course brilliant, but the choruses are even more interesting. Tony varies the vocal delivery speed sometimes, and there are occasionally interesting timings of vocal deliveries.
The keyboard is nice, and the solos are of course great. I'll maybe review this cd sometime, after I've listened to it a lot more, but I'll just say that it's brilliant for now.
I have something to say about one of the tracks. I could never really remember the tracks that got me into Sonata Arctica, but now I know that one of them was a live version of
The Power of One. The stratospheric solo, which I can now say reminds me of the lofty moments of rage of the winter and features runs reminiscent of some Kai Hansen stuff - maybe the best moments of
heading for tomorrow, is beautiful. Melodic, technical, beautifully judged. It was a great solo, and the way it rose above the drumming was one of the things that made me take notice of Sonata Arctica when I was listening to the last.fm radio, and consequently led to me discovering them. So besides merely being genius into itself, it helped introduce me to this great band. Which is doubly great.
Enough increasingly incoherent ramblings. I haven't talked about everything I'd have wanted to these last 2 weeks (or anything much at all), but thanks for being patient. I'm starting tomorrow with a clean slate, and should hopefully stay on top of things.
Martin