matt’s music blog

Watch the music video on youtube.

A little bit of ska right up front in the beginning with that snare, some bass guitar, some spacey effect synth, and then the real song at 0:11. “Whoaaa”, ha ha. Right away you know how the groove goes – the fairly simple rock percussion, the bass and lead guitars, and the the shouty-yet-in-tune vocals. The distinctive distorted high guitar line helps tie everything together.

See them creep out to nightlife
You see them walk the streets
These children of the undead look dressed for the endless Halloweens
And this horror like production,
Takes total dedication
Of black clothes and pale complexions
Rock jet black hair and monster makeup

Listen for the zombie vocal accompniment at the end of each chorus line…

And who can blame them?
They walk through asphalt cemeteries
Zombie fashions—
They must have been born that way
So can you hear me?
Can you get hip to what I’m saying?
These fashion zombies don’t walk this world alone…

The instrumentation is solid, but doesn’t do much to distract from the lyrics, which are the real treat. And once you’ve seen the music video, you can’t get the ‘fight’ or ‘performance’ scenes out of your head. The song barrels onwards, past numerous explicit ‘Thriller’ references, until the ending bar, which cuts off after the bendy sci-fi synth.

The whole song doesn’t evolve much throughout, but I’d argue that it doesn’t need to – it comes it fast, says what it needs to say, and then leaves – and it’s fun. That’s what really matters – isn’t that right, kids?

Royksopp – Remind Me

This edit of the song isn’t readily available, and the music video is so good that I figured I’d ust post if off of youtube. From the outset, the track has a sense of forward motion – the tweaky synth squelch at the beginning, followed by the solid almost plodding coupling of catchy percussion and bouncy techno bassline.

The lyrics are interesting melancholy, and fit with the chording – a sort of quiet reflection on things, set to driving music:

It’s only been a week
the rush of being home and rapid fading
Failing to recall
What I was missing all that time in England

This is a great block of lyrics – “It’s only been a week, the rush of being home rapid fading.” It’s immediately accessible, since nearly anyone could immediately empathize with the sentiment of not being able to wait to get back home, and eventually realizing that home just isn’t what you remember it was. In this case, the narrator was on a trip to England, but now that he’s home, he can’t help thinking about leaving again.

brave men tell the truth
the wise man’s tools are analogies and puzzles
a woman holds her tongue
knowing silence will speak for her

There’s neat juxtaposition here – “brave men… wise men… a woman… speak for her…” the first to lines are male, the second two are female. “A woman holds her tongue, knowing silence will speak for her,” is another incredibly invocation line, conjuring an easily imaginable scene for the listener.

Finally, at 3:50, we think the song is over… and then, bam, a couple seconds later they can’t resist throwing us back into that acidy synth effect, for a brief encore before stopping for real – which sort of works with the forward-motion feeling of the song – like it might stop, for a second, but then it keeps driving forward.

Obviously, the music video is fantastic – the isometric motion design is by a French group called H5, who are good at what they do.