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Skyclad
« Jonah's Ark »
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| 1 | Thinking Allowed
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| | 2 | Cry Of The Land
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| | 3 | Schadenfreude
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| | 4 | A Near Life Experience
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| | 5 | The Wickedest Man In The World
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| | 6 | Earth Mother, The Sun And The Furious Host
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| | 7 | The Ilk Of Human Blindness
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| | 8 | Tunnel Visionaries
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| | 9 | A Word To The Wise
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| | 10 | Bewilderbeast
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| | 11 | It Wasn't Meant To End This Way |
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Martin Walkyier - Voice
Graeme English - Bass and Classical Guitar
Steve Ramsey - Lead and Classical Guitar
Dave Pugh - Lead Guitars
Keith Baxter - Drums and Percussion
Fritha Jenkins - Violin, Mandolin and Keyboards |
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| 1. Thinking Allowed
My mind was a timebomb
That was set to explode
So I packed up my cares
Into the sunset I rode
A path to hell that's paved
With good intentions.
Well I guess you and I
Will never see eye to eye
But if there's one thing I'll be
Glad to know when I die
It's that I nev |
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 Третий альбом всегда считается своеобразной калькой всего творчества группы на текущий момент развития. Есть даже такое определение, как «кризис третьего альбома», который Skyclad успешно миновали. Группа продолжала свой героический вояж сквозь шквал несправедливой критики и насмешек, обвинений в старомодности и немодной эксцентричности. Более того, развитие группы пришлось на самое неблагоприятное для металла время – первую половину 90-х, когда и флагманы жанра переживали далеко не самые лучшие времена. Что уж говорить о дерзких новичках из Англии, эдаких творческих, чертовски талантливых и бесшабашных голодранцах?! Более «немодную» музыку на тот момент времени трудно и вообразить.
Похоже, что именно упомянутая бесшабашность на фундаменте необыкновенного таланта и давала группе силу двигаться дальше. И в итоге Skyclad записали отличный альбом, хоть и сваренный по их же рецептам, однако, не ставший повторением предыдущих работ, продолжив неуклонное развитие коллектива. Группа не стала следовать шаблонам, а продолжила заниматься тем, что у них лучше всего получается – творчеством, все более оттачивая свое мастерство. С данным альбомом Skyclad, несомненно, стали мастерами жанра, ими же и созданного. Группа звучит, как всегда, уверенно и непринужденно, со слаженностью часового механизма. Обращает на себя внимание отличное взаимодействие ударника и басиста, временами рождающее очень интересные и не самые простые партии.
Однако, в первую очередь, "Jonah’s Ark" по сравнению с предшественниками звучит, условно говоря, облегченно, - в том смысле, что больше внимания было уделено изящным аранжировкам, выгодно подчеркивающим партии скрипки, а Мартин в некоторых композициях все больше пытается петь классическим вокалом, не забывая при этом рявкать для убедительности. Безусловным трэш-фольком музыку уже назвать нельзя, поскольку появились влияния хэви, арта, а некоторые скрипичные партии носят, кто бы подумал, психоделичный характер. В целом, звучание "Jonah’s Ark" можно охарактеризовать, как более рОковое, нежели металлическое. Лирика, как всегда, на недосягаемой высоте. Тексты подобны репортажам-размышлениям, затрагивающим темы религии, будущего планеты, насмешливой критики «правильного мышления» и общественного мнения. Все тексты столь непринужденны и наполнены яркими образами, что каждый из них остается в памяти в виде ярких картинок, подобно короткометражным фильмам.
Каждая композиция альбома по-своему интересна и заслуживает внимания, поскольку довольно редко встречается не просто хороший ровный альбом, а коллекция разнообразных песен. Традиционно начинаясь скоростной композицией "Thinking Allowed", альбом предлагает слушателю набор ярких песен, наполненных сменами темпа, изысканными аранжировками и разнообразными переходами на грани прогрессива. Здесь вы найдете и традиционный металлический номер в лице экспрессивной "The Ilk of Human Blindness", и фольковую "Earth Mother", "The Sun and the Furious Host" – остроумный «наезд» на библейские постулаты. "The Cry of the Land" с ведущей партией скрипки – одна из лучших песен Skyclad как в музыкальном, так и текстовом плане – размышление от лица матери-земли. Подлинным украшением альбома является полу-акустическая "Bewilderbeast", исполненная в эдаком испанском стиле фламенко. Альбом имеет очень трагическое окончание в лице акустической "It Wasn’t Meant To End This Way" – печальное и безнадежное обращение к тем, в чьей это власти, прекратить безумие, происходящее в мире. Однако, как мы знаем, данный призыв по сей день остался без ответа... |
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'Can't Conventions.'
Two men gaze from behind
Their prison bars
One man sees dirt
The other sees stars
I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?
Just let your mind wander
It may never come back
Set off on a new train of thought
On life's track.
I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?
Why is nobody thinking?
How can you call me a failure
Or a social defective
When to find your own mind
You'd need a private detective?
I'm not a statistic or
A regular family man.
I don't give a damn about public relations
I'll never live up to
Your great expectations
You can take or leave me
Just the way I am.
Your straight jacket emotions
Only stifle and kill
The spirit within us all
I call free will.
I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?
Two men gaze from behind
Their prison bars
One man sees dirt
The other sees stars.
I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?
2. Cry Of The Land
Vibrant and real I lie
Mantled by the open sky
The wind and waves my lullaby
I am the land.
Why do you view me with
Eyes unable to see
The beauty in all that is pure
When it's left to live free?
So hot the fires within my breast
Rock and steel can't stand their test
Yet songbirds in my green beard nest
I am the land.
That which is so strong and old
Cannot be bought or sold
Mine is the green and gold
Wealth without end.
Ruled by the ebb of my oceans
Slaves to the dusk and the dawn
Your petri - dish civilisations
Are buried and born.
I watch as you live
With your heads in the sand
Unable to hear the cry of the land.
I was once a 'Happy Hunting Ground'
Then one day the eyes of science found
A blue - green planet
Spinning round a shining star.
The timeless giver of all life
Offered as a sacrifice
The priceless finds it's price
In the greed of man.
You bury your fears
And your heads in the sand
So you'll never hear the cry of the land.
3. Schadenfreude
Moonlit faces - ghostly white
Robed in midnight leather
Death - heads adorn their necks
But they have lived forever.
Malign, nocturnal predators
In search of human cattle
Drawn toward their anguished cries
Drowned by machine gun rattle.
Compassionless as mortals die
They feed as we lie sleeping
To our otherworldly overlords
We are a harvest for the reaping.
He said "Hush my child, please don't fight
Your faith is no salvation
Which is worse - a fatal kiss
Or slow asphyxiation?
I must eat so you must die
This is the natural order
Lambs to the slaughter."
Huddled in their barbed wire pens
These frightened rabbits cower
What shortlived comfort daylight brings
The jaws of night devour
Shadowed by their twisted cross
They take their seats to dine
Gorge themselves upon the blood
Of the last of Davids line
While outside in the frosty dawn
Cold sentries dare not wonder why
When daybreak brings the reveille
Their officers in slumber lie?
She cried "Holy Father save the children
Of your chosen nation
From the dead that walk this earth
(living abominations)
We cannot fight what can't be killed
Only the strong survive...
And evil never dies."
4. A Near Life Experience
Just a blank expression sitting in an easy chair
The living incarnation of a world that doesn't care
Mesmerized by media lies
Now they're "New and Improved" by a cunning disguise
It drinks their poisoned water
And thrives off noxious air.
The avant garde of apathy
Waits on the front line
Ever so patiently just biding its' time
They're an advertisers dream
With a greed habit
Their only fear is the fear
Of a green planet.
The avant garde of apathy
Looks after itself
Long past its sell by date
you're still preserved on the shelf
They'd rather ruin the world
Than let their children have it
Their only fear is fear of a green planet.
The avant garde of apathy
Vegetates undefeated
But if you don't want to join it
Then you're helping to beat it
Don't let the chance pass you by
You've got to reach out and grab it
Turn this world they have made
Into a green planet.
5. The Wickedest Man In The World
I stand here before you
The way life has made me
Ill mannered, foul mouthed
Bad tempered and lazy
I stare at your world
Down the neck of a bottle
Every day is a death ride
When I hold the throttle.
To the drowning I am water
For your calm I am the storm
I'm the fiend who's with your daughter
In bed well before the dawn.
Was I the cat that got the bird?
They'll put the blame on me
Everything was grand in wonderland
Till Charles Manson came to tea.
Each moment's a game
And I must play it to win
And if you cannot bear it
Then you'll just have to grin
All the world is a stage
So I aim to upstage you
("By the pricking of my thumbs")
Kill me off - but like Banquo
I'll come back to plague you
("Something wicked this way comes")
All martyrs seek their cross and nails
The rebels grail his cause
So I'll just sign away my soul
And forget the buy-out clause.
The few who see me through my disguise
Abhore, deplore, hate and despise me
I care not what you perceive
Fall unto your knees
Jack the Ripper went to Sunday school
With his best friends Mack the Knife
And the blue eyed boy
Who lives next door
He's a junkie Jesus Christ.
Do you think I'll be sad
'cus you don't like me
Well I consider it highly unlikely
Spill the milk but I won't cry
My eyes are watertight
Like my alibi.
Yes I'll love you then leave you
For no apparent reason
My names are many
My friends call me "Legion"
The light that casts the shadows
Darker shades of black
That hide the drugged up mugger
Who will stab you in the back.
I'm not the type of angel
Who fell from divine grace
I'm the one who was so bad
He never got there in the first place
The vulture in the wings
As the battle flags unfurl
"Pleased to meet you,
I'm the wickedest man in the world."
6. Earth mother, The Sun And The Furious Host
He was just a lad of fifteen years
Who barely fit his breeches
A latter day Dick Whittington
Who dreamt of fame and riches
His teachers took him to one side
And promised him the earth
When all he really wanted
Was a taste of wine and mirth.
They said "Attend our university
Accept responsibility
Chant our mantra of morality
Until your throat is sore."
A feast of knowledge this contrite
Could not supress his appetite
"Please sir I want some more and more..."
Christianity was apparent as a fallacy
The Devil take your Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The ones who have the answers
Are they who pipe the dancers
Earth Mother, the Sun and the Furious Host.
I'll give the whole nation
A sound education
Welcome to the school of hard knocks
Where the ones who know the answers
Are they that take their chances
For a small fish cast into an ocean
Full of unknown terrors
There's nothing much to smile at
In his comedy of errors.
Where streets aren't really paved with gold
And rags don't turn to riches
In this catalogue of disasters
The models were all bitches.
A Christ on every corner
For a coin he'll save your soul
But it's hard to be enlightened
While you're queueing for your dole.
When I think of all those shallow lies
They fed me in the past
There's one thing I must admit they've taught me...
That is how to laugh
At Christianity (it's nothing but a fallacy)
The Devil take your Father, Son and Holy Ghost
The ones who have the answers
Are they who pipe the dancers
Earth Mother, the Sun and the Furious Host.
This one's for the teachers
Who want to be preachers
Will God keep you warm
When you're cold?
You'd put those wracked by malnutrition
Straight onto your diet of superstition.
7. The Ilk Of Human Blindness
Midsummer 2045 they lay upon
The beaches burning
Insects on a ball of rock
Upon it's axis slowly turning
Steel and concrete melanomas
Punctuate the hot sunrise
Spines now chilled by global warming
Microwave their last goodbyes.
For sixty years or more they say
Mankind had known there'd come a day
When there would be a price to pay.
"Square Eyes" watched
The fools game show
The first to go and last to know
Sat eating junkfood on death row
(Feeding the fall of the human empire)
No prophet cast the money lenders
From their polystyrene temples
Noone heard the penny drop
All interest shown was incidental.
Pity the chairman of the board
For all these years he's piled his hoard
But penniless he'll meet the lord
As all the world prepares to die
He stands before the needles eye
Whilst countless millions pass him by
(Fleeing the fall of the human empire)
Recalling all those wasted hours
Of motions passed and minutes taken
Maybe now he feels remorse
For all the souls he has forsaken.
Silhouettes of living corpses
Remnants of a transcient race
March toward the red horizon
Evanesce without a trace.
The proud rub shoulders with the meek
On debris littered city streets
They fight like dogs for scraps to eat
The welfare state's in dissaray
All social order slips away
The "Primrose Path" lead to decay
(The Curtain falls on the human empire)
Codes of conduct redefine
As justice turns to legal crime
These monsters masked by human features
Are by far the blindest creatures.
8. Tunnel Visionaries
(Narration)
Nobody could have conceived in the final decade of the 20th century
That our humble affairs were being manipulated by computer interface.
Not a soul could have summised that the lives of billions were of
Less consequence than a decimal point in the stock exchanges of the world.
Rare few even questioned the relentless exploitation of our rapidly
Dwindling natural resources. And yet across the polished boardroom tables,
Beings immensely more devious than ourselves surveyed this defiled planet
With jaundiced eyes, and swiftly and ruthlessly, they hatched foul plots
Against us.
9. A Word To The Wise
From far outside
Earth's fragile atmosphere
It's clearly apparent that the end is near
The sleeper wakens and removes
His golden casque
Vital signs return to his quiescent craft.
He is truth - a word to the wise
Gods children are so young
They cannot realise
The difference between extinction
And life is now only a matter of time.
In the beginning was the knowledge
He had carried far across
The great unknown
Millenia have passed since he walked
On the savannah where the seeds
Of life were sown.
Yet even deep in slumber he could hear
His children blunder to destruction
The caretaker of creation placed a fail-safe
At the heart of his construction.
Technologies intended
As mans slaves mutated
Now they are his masters
The trust they place in progress
Only serves to bring
The last days nearer faster.
He is truth - a word to the wise
Gods children are so young
They cannot realise
The difference between extinction
And life is now only a matter of time.
I can see the oceans
Stagnent and overflowing
Filled with man made waste discharged
From my cosmic auditorium
I view this crematorium
That is your world at large
My ears hear the wailing of your children
In a future close at hand
Just as it was before - so it may be again
(If you don't try to understand)...
The seas will rise before your very eyes
Until they swallow up the land
If your polar ice caps melt
The cards are dealt
And you have died by your own hands
I will never help you while you still persist
In acting like you're blameless
I would rather let your species die forgotten
So your folly remains nameless.
He is truth - a word to the wise
Gods children are so young
They cannot realise
The difference between extinction
And life is now only a matter of time.
"When to mischief mortals bend their will
How quick they find the instruments of ill."
10. Bewilderbeast
See the brave toreador
just look at him thrive
Off the crowd as they roar.
For death brings a thrill
To the everyday lives of the
"non-com" observers
Who gloat and chastise
My mind can't believe we maintain
This barbarous blood thirsty game.
In their picturesque dwellings the aristo-classes
Spill blood that's not claret from cut-crystal glasses.
Never once pausing to contemplate why
For vanity's victories innocents die.
No better than bloodhounds
Hot on the scent
They butcher their prey
When its' energy's spent
My mind can't believe we maintain
This barbarous blood thirsty game.
Please show me this "sportsman"
You mention with pride
With his dog to defend him
And his gun at his side
If courage is the one thing
Your kind do not lack
Then why don't you hunt something
That can fight you back?
I see only cowardice ridden by guilt
And your hands won't wash clean of the blood they have spilt.
What measure of madness makes you all so ill
That your passport to pleaseure's a licence to kill?
So I won't waste my time trying to understand why
For vanity's victories innocents die
'Cus you're all vicious bastards I'm sick of your crap
So I won't bat an eyelid when it's you in the trap.
I still can't believe we maintain
This barbarous blood thirsty game.
11. It Wasn't Meant To End This Way
Sometimes I believe that we're already dead
Each day on the T.V. our last rights are read
Some fair weather oil tanker bleeding its' load
Powder keg powder plant ripe to explode.
Mister Prime Minister hear what I say,
Please Mister President listen I pray.
You have the influence and you have the power
To turn back the clocks on mankind's final hour.
When death is the helmsman who steers "Jonah's Ark"
Tomorrows an iceberg that lurks in the dark.
The band plays our song... it's the Funeral March.