Tuesday 17 April 2012

Music of Hilary and Easter 2012

I've decided a good way to track the doctoral experience is to record what I was listening to and when.  So, without further ado, I give you the music of Hilary Term 2012 and the Easter vacation.

I mentioned back in December that I had just discovered the fabulousness that is Florence + the Machine.  For some incredibly silly reason, I waited until January to listen to their first album, Lungs.  It's fantastic!  Different, possibly less rich and layered, more raw sounding than Ceremonials, but also awesome.  It has some of my favourite Flo songs: "Howl," "Drumming Song," and (below) the tremendously powerful "Cosmic Love."  I keep hoping that when we're back in Saskatoon in June and July, I might have the luxury of an empty house and the chance to crank this song up on Dad's powerhouse Bose 901 direct-reflecting speakers and sing along (not very well, but very happily).





In January, Lacuna Coil's album Dark Adrenaline was released.  I really like it; lots of good head-banging songs and, to my surprise and delight, some guitar solos!  Here is a preview track, "Kill the Light," which they played when I saw them in Oxford back in November.  The studio version is great.


Another favourite symphonic metal band, Epica, released their new album in March.  Requiem for the Indifferent is classic Epica, beautiful soprano and crunching growls (never thought I'd be a fan of growling...), awesome symphonics, great guitars, etc., etc.  Here's the first song off the ablum, "Monopoly on Truth."  (It has a great guitar solo, which always makes me happy).


For those of you more refined in your tastes, we have "Mars" from Holst's The Planets.


Also, most unfortunately, my memories of revising my transfer paper/Chapter One will always be associated with Rick Astley's "Rick Roll" song "Never Gonna Give You Up."  I don't know why this song kept getting stuck in my head (the situation probably wasn't helped by the fact that Tim kept playing the song at random intervals), but it did.  Alas.

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