What is cool?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an age-old question to which there are myriad answers, one of which surely must be: \u201ca song that sounds like Allen Ginsberg partying with AC\/DC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Granted, \u201cSuperstitions\u201d thunders along halfway through this thoroughly original hard rock\/spoken-word album, but regardless of the context it would be hard not to sit up and pay attention when an ominous voice is spitting out a thought-provoking poem over a dirty-sweet blues riff that would make Angus Young nod and snicker.<\/p>\n
The Spoken X is a collaboration between poet Ted Golder and rock and roller Peter Parker.\u00a0 Parker, a veteran European touring musician who once held down the bass slot in a live all-original-members Thin Lizzy tribute to Phil Lynott, takes care of all the instruments, while Golder writes most of the lyrics and delivers the spoken-word component of these tracks.<\/p>\n
The music is mostly stripped-down melodic hard rock; what\u2019s surprising is how effectively Golder\u2019s evocative readings and Parker\u2019s crunchy musical backings complement one another.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of aggression in tracks like \u201cGet Out Of My Face\u201d and the ironic \u201cAkoustik Attack,\u201d but the tone isn\u2019t always so obvious.\u00a0 The opening title track is where the duo really show off the potential of their unique sound, as Golder narrates a haunting trip back to his childhood neighborhood, since taken over by ghetto thugs, around a chorus that puts a punchline to his socio-personal musings: \u201cCan you see why your child\u2019s gone wild?\u201d\u00a0 The music underneath is a kind of propulsive funk that pushes Golder into an almost hip-hop flow that underscores the urgency of the entire story.<\/p>\n
Soon after, \u201cAwakening\u201d marries slightly surreal fantasy lyrics with crisp, mid-tempo melodic hard rock, resulting in a track that wouldn\u2019t feel out of place on a Rush album.\u00a0 \u201cGenesis\u201d achieves a similar effect with softer and more eerie instrumentation.<\/p>\n
Not everything here achieves its goals; \u201cThe Drinking Song\u201d might be adapted from a piece by Francois Rabelais, but its heady origins still don\u2019t raise this track above the level of filler.\u00a0 Ditto for the at least somewhat witty \u201cThe Party Song.\u201d\u00a0 And \u201cThe Meaning Of Life\u201d derives a worthwhile allegorical message from its source material The Mahabharata<\/i>, but just doesn\u2019t feel as real or relevant as what came before. <\/p>\n
A handful of weaker moments aside, Golder and Parker have much to be proud of with this album.\u00a0 Poetry and music have always been close siblings, and the best song lyrics often have a poetic flow and cadence to them.\u00a0 Distilling that relationship into a form that combines rock music with spoken-word poetry produces a potent hybrid with almost unlimited potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8083],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40587","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-spoken-x","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40587"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40587"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}