 Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Moderators, Registered Joined: 09/11/2009(UTC) Posts: 8,329  Location: Floating about on an iceberg somewhere Thanks: 436 times
Was thanked: 407 time(s) in 288 post(s)
|
OOC: Just a mini RP to keep me in shape. Nothing big. Keep me in the groove of things.
An acoustic album, entitled Beneath the Mind, is to be released sometime this winter by heavy metal band Mind to keep fans satisfied until their next full-length release. This album may come as a surprise to fans, since it focuses on the more melodic aspects of Mind than the heavier ones. Jason Smith has stated, however, that fans are “not to worry, the next one will still be as heavy and Mind-ish as fuck.” There will be singles released from the album, the first being an unusual choice, a cover of Didos Thank You. This will be released at some point during this month as a taster of the album.
The album will entwine obscure influences, such as a cover of The Burden is Mind... Alone by Green Carnation and A Dozen Roses by Braid with more well known ones, such as This Charming Man by The Smiths and 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins. Jason Smith says “We’re doing this album as a tribute of sorts to our influences and we always just wanted to release some cover tracks as a bit of fun. Hopefully, fans will like it. There isn’t any heaviness, but it has all our technical and melodic aspects.” When probed about his favourite track on the album, he replied “I think it has to be Fly. I love the original, naturally, and Blind Guardian are an enormous influence in our work, but we put an original slant on it. Made it more like their earlier Bard-like work.”
It also sees an unusual combination of alternative rock and soul in a couple of the tracks, most notably the stunning version of 1979, in which the pace is slowed and the song is extended by a couple of minutes to make way for beautiful solos and fills. Jason’s soaring voice sweeps over this beautifully. A lot of the tracks have a similar feel to this, but this is a particular highlight.
1. Digital Bath (Deftones)
Jason: “This song is beautiful, even when you don’t peel the layers back off of it. It’s pretty epic actually. It shifts between quiet, tense verses and big, grandiose choruses. The way I described it there makes it sound worse than it is, it’s that good. It sounds even more delicate when you put it in acoustic form though. We actually did a first recording of this back when the band started, but we’ve sorta just re-done our version in this album, since we have better production tools now. Of course, I couldn’t keep my hands off of the synths, so there’s a little bit of that. Overall though, I think we allow the song to breathe enough and I hope we do it justice.”
2. Fly (Blind Guardian)
Jason: “This is the most fun song I’ve worked on in a while. We do it in a different style from Blind Guardian though, we put a bit more of a soul vibe into it with the groove and stuff. It isn’t as epic as the original, not by a long shot, although we do have it going along at a nice, steady and bouncing beat. Mine and Aaron’s voices harmonise pretty well in this as well. The pre-chorus is the most like the original, except we riff it instead of doing the melody of the original. It builds up pretty well and has quite an overall happy vibe to it, which is something we don’t do very often... at all... ever.
3. The Fight of Moses Early and Sir Arthur McCloud (The Prize Fighter Inferno)
Jason: “Not many people will know this song, but it’s brilliant. It was all acoustic anyway, so this is a pretty simplistic cover of it. It’s totally different from our style, but it’s still been an influence with the melody, and that solo is sexy. I can imagine it with electrics, but it probably sounds better with the acoustics. Yet again, me and Aaron harmonise. We would be great in a boy band, heh heh! It’s quite a morbid song, in fact, the whole of the original album is a gruesome tale, but it’s musically just brilliant.”
4. Black Sandy Beaches (The Dear Hunter)
Jason: “This is also originally from a concept album, but with this, I can really relate to the lyrics. It’s a really emotional song for me. When my father died a year ago in that car crash, this was the song I listened to the most, and, although not actually audible, it influenced The Juggernaut a hell of a lot. It’s an amazing song, just amazing. Possibly my fave of all time. We don’t mess about with this one at all, it was the one song that we vowed to take seriously in the studio. Of course, we don’t have an orchestral backing here, but we make the most of what we do have. We slow it down a bit, but that’s as far as our input was. I love this song with all my heart and I just hope that our fans will as well. It means a lot.”
5. The Trees (Rush)
Jason: “Naturally, Mind owes a lot to Rush, both musically and mentally. They are possibly the biggest prog rock band ever, and one of our faves. This song in particular, although it was very hard to replicate on acoustics, we managed to do it. It was actually between this and Gravity’s Rainbow (Klaxons) for the final choices for the album, but we decided this had an edge over the other track. It just sounded better. It’s another upbeat song, although it has quite a deep meaning, behind all the lyrics about trees and shit. In this particular version, we put a tad more of a folky feel towards it, we thought it suited the feel.”
6. A Dozen Roses (Braid)
Jason: “Before everyone moans at me for Braid being an emo band, they were more post-hardcore than anything. Their lyrics actually meant something, rather than just moaning about the world. The intro to this was pretty easy to suss out, we knew that would go well in acoustic, we just didn’t have a clue how we were going to do the rest. As it turned out, this one went pretty smoothly. We also made the vocals a little less angsty, and more high pitched, so it retains a more melodic feel than post-hardcore. This was the last song we recorded, but we had planned to record it for a while, so we knew it was going to be on here. It’s a good song and Braid were a good band. Sadly, they were overshadowed by the whole controversy surrounding the scene.”
7. Thank You (Dido)
Jason: “Everyone says this was an unusual choice, but it came quite naturally to us. It has a good beat, great melody and the lyrics are cool as well. It was the perfect song to release as a single. Of course, we had to get rid of those horrible drums and poppy electrics. We replaced it with just simple guitars and a bass. This was actually going to be a song on The Juggernaut, but it sounded better on a covers album, otherwise it would be a little out of place, ya know? I actually really like it. Hope other people think it paid off. Not much else to say about this one, apart from it makes a nice little addition.”
8. This Charming Man (The Smiths)
Jason: “If you listen very closely to The Juggernaut and The Aeronaut, you can hear faint influences of The Smiths. In fact, even on parts of Shattered Fairytale, there are faint hints of Smiths-like riffs. They just have a perfect balance between straight-forward punk and pop. In acoustic, it sounds a little eerie actually. I don’t know what it is about this song, but it has a little bit of creepiness about it. This Chaaaaa-aar-ming maaaaaaan... sorry ‘bout that. Anyway, yet again, this one’s a little bit slower than the original.”
9. The Burden is Mine... Alone (Green Carnation)
Jason: “I only discovered this band quite recently. I immediately fell in love with this song though, it’s brilliant, borderline perfection. We just tried to replicate it, and we probably failed. It was worth a try though. This is similar to Black Sandy Beaches, in the fact that we didn’t change much about it at all, we just wanted more people to hear it. It is actually faster than the original, which makes it possibly the fastest song on the album. It’s very dark and brooding... brilliant.”
10. Dance of the Manatee (Fair to Midland)
Jason: “I do like this song a lot. It’s quite folky, but it mixes a lot of alt and prog elements. That’s like Mind as well, except we’re a more metallic version. So naturally, this would be a perfect choice of song. It’s quite easy to convert to acoustic actually. Some of it already was. All we had to do was make it flow a bit better and make it more relaxing. I hope we succeeded in doing that. It reminds me personally of some epic medieval battle for victory and honour and shit. Wraaaaaah!”
11. Tallulah (Sonata Arctica)
Jason: “Another emotional song for me, and another great power metal band. This song is all about an ex getting with someone else after your relationship when you still miss them and that’s happened to me a lot. Quite recently in fact, when I broke up with my girlfriend of 3 years. This time, we added some more Spanish, folky kind of guitars in, replacing the original piano segment. The solo on this is a different melody from the original, but you can hear some traces of it. The thing that makes this one interesting is that, as well as harmonising, me and Aaron take turns to sing.”
12. Spiders (System of a Down)
Jason: “Since our name actually came from a song from the same album, you can tell we’re quite big SOAD fans. Like Digital Bath, we actually recorded this a while back, during a smoking session. This time though, it sounds less trippy and more musical. Rather than using Serj Tankians technique of singing, we keep our vocals mostly deep on this one and don’t project it too much. We give it a quieter, eerie feel. At the end of it, we have a little jamming session, a sorta mini one. Not too much though, we don’t want to make it feel too wank-y. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, this is one of my fave songs from the album.”
13. 1979 (The Smashing Pumpkins)
Jason: “By the reception we’ve had so far, this is the song people praise the most. We add a touch of smooth soul into the mix and slow the song down by quite a significant amount. The vocals are slightly higher than the original, well, some are. Aarons vocals are lower, but also quieter than mine. We strum a lot in this, rather than riffing. It doesn’t suit riffing. As for what this song means to us, it means quite a bit. Of course, I was born in 1986, so the dates and stuff don’t mean crap, but it reminds me of my college days and stuff. When me and my friends use to listen to all the classic stuff, the groundbreaking. Good times. It’s a good, mellow and generally nice song. Love it.”
14. Mellow Mind Medley (New Day – Karnivool/ Terminal – Devin Townsend/ Svefn – g – Englar – Sigur Ros/ Jessica – The Allman Brothers Band/ reprise of New Day)
Jason: “This one’s a bit of a toughie to explain actually. We just decided to piece together bits of songs. I’ll go through their meanings to us first, I think. Karnivool are just a great band, not much else to say, and New Day’s got a brilliant melody to it. It’s big and epic. We took the beginning and end from that song and put it in acoustic. It sort of sums up the album. It’s a new day. A new chapter for the band. I can’t put how much I love that song into words. Best Australian band ever. What can I say about Devin Townsend? Favourite artist of all time. This song in particular is brilliant, it’s just so mellow and musical. You can just listen to it and relax, it’ll take you to another world... we didn’t change anything with that, we didn’t want to mess with perfection. Sigur Ros are a band I listen to a lot when I’m stressed. We could have chosen any track, but this one has a great tune in it. At the end of that particular segment, we do a little improvisation, and it then gets a bit more lively. It turns into Jessica, by The Allman Brothers Band, or the Top Gear theme tune. It’s just a good tune and will get you humming along. Yee-ha. As I mentioned previously, we reprise New Day at the end, just to sort of bring the album to a close. I hope it is implanted in your brains!”
Reviews:
“It’s full of some well done covers, but ultimately, it’s unnecessary and only for overachieving fans. 2/5” – Allmusic Guide
“Mind have proven that nothing is too hard for them with this collection of mighty covers, displaying a range of influences. 8/10” – Metal Hammer
“Some stunning tracks, some that seem like fillers, but it’s a generally solid album. 3K” – Kerrang!
“Songs like 1979 and the absolutely mesmerising Black Sandy Beaches make this album a good addition to the Mind collection. 7/10” - NME
|
