Stranger than Fiction, Larger Than Life: the Finn Brothers song-by-song discussion thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Lance LaSalle, Jan 21, 2019.

  1. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Good point, the title is pretty bad.
     
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  2. jimbutsu

    jimbutsu WATCH YÖUR STEPPE

    Away for a couple days - glad to see the thread continued in my absence, humbling though it was.

    "Dreary Droop" is hard to rate. I actually think it's really pleasant and mellow (so much so that it feels shorter than its 4 minute runtime), but I can't make any sense of it, so I'm unable to give it high or low marks. As with some others on this album, I think maybe if I'd listened to the album more in general I might have found some meaning in it an connected with it - which would change how I scored it - but alas... no.

    3/5
     
  3. therunner

    therunner Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Dreary Droop" is just wallpaper music to me, the sort of noise I might hear in the background of a shopping mall or cafe, that I cannot recall 5 minutes later.

    2/5
     
  4. BeSteVenn

    BeSteVenn FOMO Resident

    Yep, Dreary Droop definitely improves when the treble and bass are tweaked, and it's best listened to in the context of the rest of The Nihilist.

    It reminds me a bit of some of Godley and Creme's more out-there sounds from the late 70s/early 80s.

    I'll join the crowd in the mid-3s: 3.4/5.
     
  5. StefanWq

    StefanWq Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallentuna, Sweden
    I really like "Dreary Droop". It's a dreamy soundscape, built up by the keyboards and the vocals being quite low in the mix which make them more like an instrument adding to the mysterious atmosphere. I haven't a clue what the lyrics might be, but I sense both melancholy and a strong hope. The guitars at the end give the track a bit of determination and energy and fits perfectly. Brilliant!
    4,6/5
     
  6. dthomas850

    dthomas850 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cleveland, Ohio
    Dreary Droop - another very good track, the end section is especially intense.
    4.5/5
     
  7. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Our votes for "Dreary Droop"

    1-0
    2-2
    3-5
    4-3
    5-3
    Average: 3.3923
     
  8. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Today's song is "Miracle Glance", written by Liam Finn and Eliza-Jane Barnes. Produced by LIam Finn. Recorded by Chris Boosahda and Liam Finn; mixed by Andrew Everding and Liam Finn.



    Liam Finn: vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, bass, digi-beats
    Jol Muholland-Keyboards
    Elroy Finn: drums
    Eliza-Jane Barnes: vocal loops

    I walk through the city
    I didn't stand a chance
    With a miracle in your glass
    Cause they tell a story
    In love with the world but never a girl
    Was it only a whirl, a lonely assumption?
    Will I follow my footprints?
    How I wish I could be there
    Oh, I wish I could feel it

    Sometimes I change my mind so fast
    I don't want to leave her alone.
    Not while we're out of control
    Who knows how long, how long we'll last?
    I think I'm here alone
    No, it's never enough

    'Til I hear you say
    You feel the certainty
    AS we were mesmerized
    By the warning light
    Will we find a way?
    WE live yesterday
    Cause we were meant to fight
    You don't need to cry

    A freak in the moonlight
    Be wary of her dance
    Some heavy dose stem your line(?)
    And open up the star-eyed glow
    Low, no, the melody flows
    Out of blood vessels
    And deadly assumption
    And while I soak up the numbness,
    I'm just a fossil in a sunken tomb
    How I wish I could feel it
    Oh, I wish I could feel it

    Til I hear you say
    You feel the certainty
    Cause we were mesmerized
    By the warning light
    Will we find a way?
    We live yesterday
    Casue we wern't meant to fight
    You don't need to cry


     
  9. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Live with the Dream Team on the Roof of [the end]
     
    HitAndRun, NorthNY Mark and StefanWq like this.
  10. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    Miracle Glance

    This is top notch chill out music, and would fit right in with all the Thievery Corporation and Bonobo music I’ve been listening to throughout the pandemic.

    The vocals sound good and float on top of a mostly relaxing track. Even the noisier part at the end keeps the mood. I think this is one of the best tracks on this album.

    4/5
     
  11. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    To me this is what the last track was going for but didn't really make it at all. Same theme of long distance love (I guess). This sounds really cool, (again while equalized) and unlike the last song has enough of a melody that it keeps me interested.

    It's kind of like....eighties keyboards, and dissonant noisy guitar and picked Brian Wilson-esque bassline and unexpected bursts of drumming and LA soft-rock guitar: it's like Achtung Baby meets Rio meets Pet Sounds. Which is great in my weird book.

    Only quibble is with Liam's thin voice: while it sounds all right and in tune and carries the melody well, it just doesn't convey quite the emotion that I think he's trying to express. Squeaky.

    Live version is OK, not really better but doesn't need an equalizer adustment.

    4.5/5
     
  12. therunner

    therunner Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    I can cope with "Miracle Glance" for a couple of minutes but I can't remember the last time I managed the full 6 minutes before just now, so I got a surprise at the noisy part as I had completely forgotten about it. Normally Liam/Betchadupa doing the sudden noisy bit turns me off but by the time it happened here I was already anaesthetised enough for it not to bother me. Not my thing musically at all, and Liam's high register vocals don't help at all.

    2/5
     
  13. Anne_G

    Anne_G Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Miracle Glance:
    Not feelin’ it but not rage-y either.
    2.5/5
     
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  14. NorthNY Mark

    NorthNY Mark Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canton, NY, USA
    Miracle Glance: My reaction to this one is that it's pretty good without being exceptional. My favorite part is when the percussion kicks in about midway through--Elroy does a great job here. I'm also noticing that with this album, I think Liam and Neil are opposites in terms of their falsetto: Liam sounds better to me in his falsetto register than in his normal register, so it makes sense for him to use it a lot (whereas I think Neil has tried to do something similar on some recent albums, and it usually doesn't work for me). On the other hand, Liam's regular voice doesn't sound nearly as good as Neil's (IMHO), so in the closing part of the song, I wish he'd stuck with the falsetto: 3.8/5

    By the way, Lance, I think the line you had a question about is "Some heavy dose stimulant."
     
  15. HitAndRun

    HitAndRun Forum Resident

    Miracle Glance

    I think this might be an interesting song under all those layers of unsympathetic instrument sounds and arrangements. The vocal melody might not be bad at all. But, the arrangement distracts from it, and not in a good way. The various sounds just take away from the vocal, not add to it. And, Liam's voice is a bit thin for this sort of melody.

    The song is way too long at 6:23. I don't find there's enough in the song to maintain my interest for half of that. I feel obliged to to listen to the whole thing. Guitar solo now. Indistinct and overbearing at the same time. Oh, there's some variation in the last verse. That sounds a bit better. Not a huge amount though.

    I'm voting multiple songs in a row exactly the same, but this is my experience of the album.

    2.8/5
     
  16. NorthNY Mark

    NorthNY Mark Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canton, NY, USA
    By the way, someone a few pages back asked about the cover photo, thinking it resembled U. S. Civil War-era photography, and Lance responded that it was a "wet-plate" photograph. That means the person who brought it up was definitely on the right track, as the wet-plate (or collodion) process was very popular around the Civil War era. It involved making negatives from glass plates coated in light-sensitized collodion (the same material used to make artificial skin in surgical practice), which allowed for far sharper and clearer images than what were possible with the paper negatives available at the time. They tend to feature almost startling vividness in the center of the image, and pronounced blurriness around the edges (both of which we can see in this album cover pretty well). For anyone who may be interested, the wikipedia page has some great info:
    Collodion process - Wikipedia .
     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2021
  17. jcr64

    jcr64 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana
    "Miracle Glance"Once again Liam shows that he's talented, and once again he has meticulously built up, layer by layer, what I assume is exactly the sound he wants. And once again I find myself confronted by the gulf between Liam's preferred aesthetic and my own. Miracle Glance" isn't a bad song, exactly, but it goes on far too long, it once again seems more formless soundscape than song, and it once again has had the life and air sucked out of it by the production.

    2.5/5
     
  18. KangaMom

    KangaMom Queen of the Quokkas

    Miracle Glance - I have to confess to tuning out part of the way through this song. I don't find any of it objectionable, it's just a case of more aural soundscape without me having to tune in so much. I like the sounds involved here but nothing is holding my attention. Unfortunately this is essentially the 3rd aural soundscape song in a row for this album (albeit they are all different takes). I'm definitely beginning to lose interest...and just looking for a pretty straightforward song to appear...

    3/5
     
  19. StefanWq

    StefanWq Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallentuna, Sweden
    "Miracle Glance" has a fair bit of potential to be a worthwhile soundscape, with lots of complexity and layers in its backing track. However, it is way too long, by several minutes, for its own good.
    2,8/5
     
  20. jimbutsu

    jimbutsu WATCH YÖUR STEPPE

    It's sonically interesting as long as I don't listen to closely, especially to the lyric, which I can't get any meaning or impact from. I'll also agree with those who've said it goes on too long. I don't think the length would bother me if I could connect in some way with the lyrics/narrative, but...

    2.8/5
     
  21. BeSteVenn

    BeSteVenn FOMO Resident

    Miracle Glance is another kitchen sink song, Liam throws a lot at the listener, and some of it's good, but too much of it makes me wonder "why is this in the song?" It might have been made better if there had been a Zen Roxy mix of it, because there is a lot to admire (especially in the "noisy section"), and there is also a lot I wish weren't there.

    3/5
     
  22. drewrclv9

    drewrclv9 Forum Resident

    Yeah, this about sums it up for me, except I like it a little less than 2.5. Tough for me to get through this one fully, and it has the unfortunate privilege of reminding me of "Impressions," "Divebomber", and "Lights of New York," with its endless, abstract portal of sound. Not quite as bad as the latter two of those three, though. There are a few mildly interesting aspects going on: I kind of like the noisy part at the end, but it comes well after my interest for the song has gone.

    2/5
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2021
  23. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    I stayed up late watching the Crowded House concert and slept 'til 8 and now I don't have time to do any counting, so I'll do it later.

    Today's song is: "4 Track Stomper", written and produced by Liam Finn. Recorded by Liam Finn and Jol Mulholland.


    Liam Finn: Vocals, bas guitar, 4-track beat, synthesizer
    Eliza-Jane Barnes: vocals
    Elroy Finn: drums
    Jol Muholland-synthesizer's.
     
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  24. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

  25. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    4 Track Stomper

    I like everything about this track except the drums. I like the bass groove a lot, the vocal is okay, and there are some very interesting sounds running underneath. But the sound of the drums just grates. Again, in the context of the album, this is not a problem for me.

    2.5/5
     

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