Ace Audio: "The Good Doctor" - The Protomen

Hey, I never said all the odd stuff was bad, did I? Also, a joyous noise because this is the first song from 2009 that I'm covering on Ace Audio!

So what exactly is this? Well, this is a song from the album Act II - The Father of Death, a rock opera inspired by Mega Man, you read that right, inspired by Mega Man. So if you think that this is going to be some nerdy techno rock song, than think again because these guys know what they're doing.

The first sound of this song is actually a western style guitar sound. You know, lots of western themed movies and games use this kind of sound, you can hear something similar to it in the game Red Steel 2. It continues to go on with slow guitar and heavy bass, and it just sounds beautiful. The drums kick in around the twenty second mark, but stay for a short bit. It's a bit distracting, but not too much so.

As I said, the album is based on the Mega Man series of video games, and makes it a rock opera, not to dissimilar to Tommy. This song is basically the catalyst for the series. For those who don't know, Mega Man is about a robot (Aptly named Rock, and titled Mega Man), who fights the other robots from Dr. Albert Wily, with help from his creator Dr. Thomas Light. Wily and Light were originally colleagues and this song focuses on that aspect, and also why the robots were created in the first place. It's show cased beautifully in the opening lyric. "My father worked the mines until the day it took his life/It stole him from his only son, and it stole him from his wife." this is Thomas Light's first verse and it suddenly gives things a perspective.

The third verse is also really good, and it really does show Tom's side of the situation. "They've waited so long for this day/Someone to take the death away/No son would ever have to say/"My father worked into his grave"." The drums really kick in around this point and have a kind of military beat to them, which I think compliments the rest of the instrumentals.

Next is Albert's verse, and gives a good metaphor "If you replace the working parts, you get a different machine" which could mean many things, even in the context of the song.

Since I talked about these verses separately, I think I should talk about the vocalists. The first one playing the part of Dr. Light is very heavy and it works well, Dr. Wily's singer is a bit off for what I would consider his voice to be, but the singer isn't bad at all, and it does create a nice contrast between the two.

The instrumentals are also nice, and not just the drums and guitars, but also the horns, yes horns. They have horns in this song and they just add something right, I don't know but they just add to the song. It's really nice.

Light continues the song with probably my favourite lyrics of the song. "I never said that men should bow. I never said that men should break."

I also like how the lyrics give Light some good motive and they really make us side and sympathize with him. I don't want to give away all the lyrics to this song, but then again you always have the chance to listen to it. Speaking of the lyrics, if you do look up the lyrics to this song, you'll also get descriptions of what goes on before the verse. I also like the conversations that the two have. Debating about human nature, what the robots would be used for, and ethics.

Overall, I think that this is an amazing song and shows a lot of promise for the album. The instrumentals, lyrics and story all work beautifully and create a unique song, the likes of which I haven't ever head in any song before, not even in the rock scene. Would you guys believe that this album and it's previous one have yet to be reviewed by major reviewers and have still gained a bit of a cult following? Well, if I ever find a copy of either album, I'm going to buy them. This song was just to good to pass up.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and rock on my friends.

Ace Audio: "Take Me to Church" - Hozier

If you were to ask me what my favourite song of the decade is so far, I would probably choose "Eyes Wide Open" or one of Aurelio Voltaire's songs. Yet, at the same time I could very well place this song up there as well. Back in my review of "I Hate U, I Love U" or as I call it, "Drone on and on the song", I called this song "Drone on the song done right". Well, the more I thought about the more I thought that this would be a good review to do, because in a decade that gives us so many amazing gems, it's always fascinating how we focus on one gem over many others.

This is going to be a difficult song to talk about because, I know that some people don't like this song, and that it can make some people uncomfortable, and yeah, it does make me a bit uncomfortable too, although I think it is more the music video rather than the actual song. Yeah, if I do a list on the best music videos, telling you right now I'm not going to be talking about this one. However, to me the feeling of discomfort is not a strong one, and dare I say, it is an interesting one.

The sound of this song is very depressing, and that makes sense, as the song came from a place of anger and frustration, with the Catholic Church specifically. This isn't the first song I've talked about with religious themes, I did a review on the musical atrocity "Dorbees - Making Decisions" a while ago, and I've done "Hero" by Skillet as well. However, those were both abominations, as they were both songs I took a dislike towards. The songs from Dorbees were annoying and poorly done, Skillet is bland and dull. Notice how neither of those criticisms were based around the fact that they were religious songs. However, this is my first Ace review where I talk about a song that is against the Catholic Church.

The lyrical content is not entirely based around this though, and if it was then it would most likely be an Abomination. It actually uses clever metaphor of comparing somebody's lover to religion, and when you analyze the lyrics, you see how demanding the lover can be. Lines like "To keep the goddess on my side/ She demands a sacrifice/ Drain the whole sea/ Get something shiny..." are all things people have said they would do for their loved ones, you know "Grenade" by Bruno Mars, but that song tried to use that in earnest, and this song more uses it to show the compassionless lover, or the demanding nature of religion. This is one of those lyrics over music songs like "Innocent".

The great thing about lyrics over music songs is that they are essentially poetry put to music, or maybe even poetry made for music. The problem is that they can usually be either too simple, or too complex, which is tricky to gage because everybody understands things differently. Have any of you read the poem "Introduction to Poetry"? I'm not going to give away what it's about, but it took me until I was eighteen to understand what it actually was about, and I read it while in middle school. It's not that it's a difficult poem to understand, but I can be a bit slow on the uptake. On the flipside, some songs and poems, and even movies get a little too close to home with their metaphors, symbols, and personifications. See the Nostalgia Critic's review of The Matrix to truly understand. I think this song strikes a middle ground, once you get the main idea of the song, the metaphor and meaning come easily.

Since I'm talking about a song and not poetry, I should mention the musical aspect itself, because in honesty, this is the part that really ties it together. I know I criticized the piano in "I Hate U, I Love U", and although it is kind similar here, it works because 1). It is not just one key left to drone, 2). It fits with the mood of the song and 3). importantly, it isn't the only instrument in the song. The piano only opens the song, and then before the chorus, we get some nice drums that come into full swing by the chorus. There is also some kind of droning "Ooh!" in the background, but it adds to the song instead of detracts from it. Letting sounds drone on is not immediately a bad idea, much like how using all your speed boosts at the beginning of a Time Trial is not immediately a bad idea, but it can become one if you don't know what you're doing.

Hozier's voice is very nice on this song, I can't really explain it, his voice just sounds nice on this song. It's also much more different than some of the whispery or whiny male voices we have in pop like Ed Sheeran, Passenger and Lukas Graham.

Although this is not in my top 10, I do think that it's in my personal top 20. If you want to make a song that sounds like it's droning on, this may be a good place to start. On the other hand, if you want a song that has strong lyrical content and some really good instrumentals, than you may want to add this song to your collection, but then again with all the success it has gotten, I think you already have.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I'm feeling in a bit of an 80's mood next time.

Ace Audio: "Eyes Wide Open" - Gotye

When an artist is only recognized for just one song, it often overshadows a bunch of the artist's other stuff, even if the other stuff are a lot better. This is most commonly seen in the category known as "One-hit wonders", music artists that have one large hit (often one that reaches number one) and just all of a sudden drop off the charts altogether. There are many artists who have just barely escaped the one hit wonder branding like Mike Posner and Jeremih, but those are not the kind of artists I'm talking about. There are also those kinds of artists who you kind of worry will stay a one hit wonder, and for a while, I never had that kind of worry, because a lot of the music I listened to was rock and metal, and when I did listen to something popular, the artist often seemed to have a second or third hit, or was already a one-hit wonder. That was however, until I listened to Gotye, who you might know because of this one little known song called "Somebody That I Used to Know".

You see, I'm not worried about this guy becoming unsuccessful, because he really seems the kind of person who enjoys making music, no I'm worried that "Somebody That I Used to Know" will be the only song he is recognized for in the coming years. Not because it's a bad song, but because it is not his best song. In my opinion his best song is "Eyes Wide Open" from the same album, for multiple reasons I'm going to get into during this review, but let me state this upfront right now, I understand why this wasn't a big pop hit.

Like I said when I reviewed "Royals" a lot of these non-pop pop songs were making the charts and "Somebody That I Used to Know" fits right up there. These kinds of songs are pop enough to appeal to mass audiences, but not pop enough to have much staying power on the charts. "Eyes Wide Open" may have been too weird for the charts, in fact it may have even been a victim of being too rock for the pop charts and too pop for the rock charts.

But that doesn't mean the song itself is bad, in fact quite the contrary. As much as I understand why this wasn't popular, it doesn't mean I don't think it should be popular. So why is this better than "Somebody That I Used to Know"?

Well for starters, those instrumentals. God damn those instrumentals are amazing. Those drum beats set the perfect beat and rhythm to the song and the bass really compliments it. but what really steals the show is that slide guitar which really does give the song a very desolate, hopeless sound to it all.

That also isn't a complaint as this song is actually about an apocalypse, this is highly complimented by not only the instrumentals but also the lyrics. This song may have my favourite lyrics in any song, I won't spoil them for new listeners, but I will say that my favourite lines really hit hard, which the best lyrics should do.

Gotye may stay in the one-hit wonder world that the pop scene pushes plenty of artists into. However, I think it would be a massive shame if we at least didn't listen to more of his music. He is a talented musician and has made some really good songs from this to other stuff like "Bronte".

I'm the Entity of Darkness and always give things a chance, you may like it more than you think.