Originally posted by Jim LotFP
I don't know, this place needs a musically based dispute to get people's focus people away from the 'state of the board', and creating controversy around such an ambitious and monumental album like this Green Carnation can only get people curious, so I dispute your claims that there is no dispute!
Jim:
I have two disputes with you regarding LOD, DOD. First you say it's ambitious-- I don't think so. Then you say it's monumental-- I don't think so.
The song runs like one long and rarefied continuation of the same musical idea, at best; or a montonous repetition of the same musical idea, at worst.
In the former case, 60 min is asking a tad much of a person's time. A single idea- almost like a single emotion that wavers back and forth like a flag, to make metaphors hopefully descriptive of my perception of the music- however long is still a single thing. It could be 60 or 80 min long-- it's still one thing. When the music stops what's achieved is the memory of a single thing, essentially, and it's not too a great thing to begin with. This comprises the sum of the musical experience. Hence, as stated, the track, I feel, should have been condensed into a 10-20 min track included on a more diverse album filled with other tracks. Brevity would have given whatever artistic vision underlying the song a greater expression. In short, the song is monumentally long, but it's not monumental musically. This also might explain why you feel the song could have gone on for longer -- as I stated, I like the song, but it doesn't "do much" - hence i say it should be shorter; and it doesn't take me anywhere- hence you feel it should be longer.
The appelatives "ambitious" and "monumental" are given by musical folk who, I suspect, are starving for something in their lives. They need a certain void filled. And when it is, they will think highly of whatever fills it- more highly than it should be. I think ambition of this kind should exist and be exercised more often, but I don't praise albums simply because they happen to be long-winded 60 min tracks. Such is rare but not unprecedented in music (see Crimson; see classical music).
(This post too is long-winded, doesn't do much and doesn't go anywhere concisely. It should be about 5 sentences long, but, hey, I still feel rather comatose dialectically

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8 out of 10 stars for Green Carnation's "Light of Day, Day of Darkness" Good for a tepid, unchallenging musical experience. (10 for Crimson)
tentatively...