I figured I should do my first review on this album, mainly because it'd be tough to tackle. It's going to be a long review, since I'll be talking about each track and the band history. Please bear with me.First, a little background. This is the third album by The Sounds of Animals Fighting. The band itself is an experimental project so it's no surprise the albums have been as well. The brain child of Rich Balling, former member of Rx Bandits, the original lineup consisted of members from Rx Bandits, Finch, and Circa Survive. They used monikers based on animals such as The Skunk, The Nightingale, The Walrus, etc and the group became an outlet for musical ideas outside their respective bands. The first album, The Tiger and the Duke, was a 4 song EP with instrumental interludes between each song. There was a certain mystique surrounding its release due to the members' identities being hidden. It sounded something like America's answer to The Mars Volta, with Anthony Green screaming his heart out. The four songs were great, but the interludes were a bit lame (Though the re-release brought in better interludes). It opened to many positive reviews and many were interested in what came next.
The second album, Lover, the Lord Has Left Us, was definitely not what everyone was expecting. It was experimental rock without the rock. The intricate guitar work was replaced with electronic sounds and buzzes. It's like the OK, Computer to the first album's Kid A. New animals were brought in for vocal duties, including Keith Goodwin from Days Away, Matthew Kelly from The Autumns, Craig Owens from Chiodos, a Sanskrit singer, and a German opera singer. Yes, a German opera singer. This should give you an idea of how weird the album is. The interesting thing about this album was how it was recorded. Each member was given a day to record their contribution to the album. The only one who heard any of the other members' tracks was Rich Balling himself. I found the album to be very interesting. It's not a bad album, but it is hard to listen to. You have to be in the right mindset. The sounds are so diverse and strange that it's easy to dismiss as shite. It's also so strange that you can't help but let yourself drown in its odd concoction of electronic bleeps, synthesizers, singing, kitchen sounds, recitations of literature, and experimental nature.
So this brings us to the third album, The Ocean and the Sun. Where the first album was rock and the second album was experimental, this album seems like a mix of the two. The lineup was taken down to the base four: Rich Balling (The Nightingale) on vocals and production, Matt Embree (The Walrus) on guitar, Chris Tsagakis (The Lynx) on drums, and Anthony Green (The Skunk) on vocals. The worst thing I can say about this album is that the mix sucks. I'm not exaggerating. The instrument mix is good and all, but the vocal mix is quiet as hell. So you'll be listening to some blistering guitar work and Anthony Green will be singing (or screaming) something and all you'll hear are mumbles. I don't know if the copy I have is like that or if all are like that but it's annoying.
Well, with that out of the way, let's get on with it. The album opens up with a spoken word introduction which is the poem "In The Desert" by Stephen Crane translated into Farsi. It leads into title track "The Ocean and the Sun", a low key medium tempo track with Anthony Green at the helm. It sounds a lot like something off Lover, the Lord Has Left Us, especially when the electronics make a return near the end. Next up is "I, the Swan" with Rich Balling handling vocal duties. Something about his voice is soothing to me. I don't know what it is, he just has a deep, warm, calmness about it. The song is sung at a medium pace, with the words "I, the Swan, am beautiful and phallic" repeated a few times throughout the song. Then the tempo kicks up and the guitar increase until it erupts in full force with Anthony Green's higher pitched voice singing the words. The music only picks up from here, finally ending with a group of children saying a few words rather creepily.
"Another Leather Lung" sees Anthony Green with vocal duties again. His vocals are only okay on this song. The tempo is back on medium, with the guitar riffs occasionally switching to a minor key and giving it a darker feel. Just as you feel the song is getting a little monotonous, the song switches into overdrive with the guitars back in their prog rock mode from Tiger and the Duke and Anthony Green screaming his lungs out again. It doesn't last long though.
"Cellophane" is similar to "Another Leather Lung" in structure, except with Balling on vocals, some trumpet, and Balling doing his best Radiohead voice. Actually, that's what the song reminds me of. It is Radiohead-ish. That is until the last part of the song where the crazy, dynamic, guitar work shows itself again with Green's screams and Matt Embree joining in on singing.
The end of the song segues directly into "The Heraldic Beak of the Manufacturer's Medallion". This is a beast of a track. The intense guitar work hinted at throughout the album is put to full force, with Anthony Green singing (not screaming) his way through it. The song is epic, with Embree's blistering riffs and Tsagakis' fantastic drumming brought to the forefront.
"Uzbeckistan" returns to the Lover, the Lord Has Left Us weirdness with the Farsi singer back. However, there's a bit less electronic in this song, more guitar work, a faster pace, and English. It's still strange, but the music is exciting to listen to."Blessings Be Yours Mister V" sounds more like a former Rx Bandits track or something. It has Matt Embree on vocals, and the guitars sound really similar to Rx Bandits' style. It's a decent enough track, but I could skip it.
"On the Occasion of Wet Snow" is the album closer. I'm not sure what to say about it. It's a slower paced, atmospheric type song. The vocals have an ethereal quality to them, like wisps of air rolling past. Near the end of the song, everything culminates into a satisfying end.
The album has a few interludes in it, and another spoken word track at the end (which is just the English version of the intro). It's not an album for everybody. I wish there were more tracks like "The Heraldic Beak..." because the teases at the end of some of the other tracks just weren't enough. I hope another album gets released but Rich Balling has been heard saying this will be the last one. If you're into progressive rock, or experimental bands, then this is worth checking out. It's a really hard album to recommend to anybody. All I can say is that it might be your cup of tea, or it might not be. It took me a few listens to really appreciate it. At first I thought it was only okay, but now I think higher of it. I still think the mix is messed up, and that Green's vocals weren't quite as great as they could have been. Still, that could have been due to the mix, but who knows. Also, only one song on the album was anything like Tiger and the Duke. That fact was just a little disappointing. If you were to ask me how I'd rate it on a scale from 1 to 10, I'd say a solid 7.5.
http://www.myspace.com/thesoundofanimalsfighting
For "The Heraldic Beak of the Manufacturer's Medallion"
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