My vote goes toward an album in the same vein as PL & IC but with 99% of the album going back to the "V" style of playing. +1
Communion and the Oracle! And don't even begin to tell me that Paradise Lost (song) or When All Is Lost are replacements for Communion!
Communion really is great.
Even the outro with the drums and synth-bass grooving it out is simply amazing. This section is completely different than anything else they've done... I'd even consider calling it risky.
Communion really is great.
Even the outro with the drums and synth-bass grooving it out is simply amazing. This section is completely different than anything else they've done... I'd even consider calling it risky.
I'd sell my left nut on ebay for them to start taking risks like that again.
What was risky about WAIL? Communion didnt even have a chorus. The "night and day" part is probly the closest.
...
I love the structure of Communion. The fact that it has three or so different styles of "verses" yet no true repeating chorus makes it very unique and interesting. The "night and day" part could serve as a chorus of sorts, as could the "raise our heads up to the sky" section near the end, but neither really feels like a chorus to me. The former is sung over a theme from earlier in the song (albeit in a different key), and the latter feels more like a resolution than a chorus. Anyway, Communion is a breath of fresh air from all the copycat bands that adhere to boring, radio-friendly verse/chorus structures. Sadly, Symphony X's song structures have become more mainstream in the last decade, with only a handful of exceptions.
Absolutely. On the topic of Opeth, I find Damnation and its quality songwriting to be a much stronger album than Heritage and its overly "progressive" unconventional structures.I don't think structure alone has anything to do with a song being good or bad. But if a song has too many conventional elements, a conventional structure is going to be just an another dull element.
"Unconventional" structures don't save bad progressive music from being bad. In fact, they can just highlight it.