Gast1 wrote:
Alex@MetalReviews.com wrote:
Gast1 wrote:
Just a question: how can it be melancholic if it's on funeral doomtempo, by which you can drink a beer between two snare beats?
Don't understand the question, why can't melancholic be at funeral tempo?
Well, basicly because I never heard anything melancholic at a superslow tempo. Melancholy is a very special feeling, it's like something so beautiful and balanced that it gets a sad vibe to it. It's like when loving someone, suddenly realising that beauty will fall and love cannot be forever. It's not only the hardest thing to do of all emotions, but it's definitely what all my favorite bands attempt to capture in their music. Hate is easy, sadness it not so hard either, but to capture a melody that is the enbodyment of beauty and sadness at the same time seems to aquire some sort tempo. Really fast is not an option, because it implies aggressiveness or happyness. Upbeat is ok though, Vlad Tepes - Drink The Blood Of The Celtic Disciple is a perfect example of that. It seems that it is easiest done at mid- or slow tempo, and with the use of synths. Without is hard but would own ofcourse (Baptism - Wisdom & Hate, Noenum, Nargaroth - Seven Tears Are Flowing To The River, Nachtmystium - Demise). I have never heard of anything without tempo that was melancholic, and I guess it would be extremely hard to do. Funeral Doom is sometimes melancholic, but always in rare faster parts. When I looked at the score I just wondered how it could be possible for this band to achieve this, however, it would be logical if you just have another view on melancholic, or if the melancholic parts occur in faster parts, such as with bands like Silencer.
Gast, are we hanging up on semantics a bit too much? Webster, a source for English words interpretation when I am in doubt, teaches that melancholy is "depression of spirits" and gives "sad, pensive, dejected", even "dismal" as synonyms. I am glad you are alllowinfg me my own definition of melancholy, and, yes, I do not draw much of a line between sadness and melancholy. Per your definition of melancholy "beautiful and balanced that it gets sad vibe to it", yes I can hardly call this album melancholic, as it is mostly sad.
To me the feeling of funeral doom hardly has anything to do with beauty. It is a feeling of complete despondedness, the music I want to hear when I am at the end of my line, when I am ready to call it quits. Shape of Despair is that, however, in this album I did not become overtaken with grief and sorrow, and therefore I could not possibly score it high.
Respectfully, Alex.
