Blackhouse - Dreams Like These
By Chelsea 2000

The quiet, mysterious sounds the listener experiences while listening to Blackhouse’s release, Dreams Like These, really impacts the person to a larger degree than one would expect from such low sounds and music.  The track titles include “The Graves Are Full of Warriors,” a recording with industrial-like sounds played throughout, “Attic Friends,” a rather spooky track with sounds of footsteps and what appears to be things falling down stairs and “Closer,” a song with chanting and a constant low note being played.  Each of the 11 songs are different, and each has its own unique quality, whether it is an incessant sound or a pattern of music.

Blackhouse started in the 1980’s and is considered one of the founders of the “industrial” genre of music. They have released albums on mostly non-USA labels, and so they are not as well known here as they are in other countries. This particular release strove towards hovering on the line that is the border of our conscious and unconscious thinking.  The soft sounds and beats, when played at a low volume as the liner notes suggest, really do impact the listener in a different way than other types of music would.

Brave Saint Saturn - So Far From Home
By Chelsea 2000

When Five Iron Frenzy’s lead singer and lyricist, Reese Roper, started writing songs that didn’t fit the usual Five Iron music style, Brave Saint Saturn was born.  The side project was created by Roper as an outlet for his thoughts on subjects he thought too dark and emotional for Five Iron Frenzy.  Lyrically, the songs deal with tragedy, sorrow, and the hardships of the world.  His Five Iron Frenzy band mates, Keith Hoerig, and Dennis Culp contribute their talents to the album, along with former Five Iron member, Scott Kerr.  The music centers around the main trio playing electric, acoustic, and bass guitar, although there are many different layers.  With the addition of programming, sampling, and many studio musicians, the songs become very complex.  Roper’s melodies flow beautifully over the exceedingly well-played pop/rock music. 

The album opens with “Prologue”, a short instrumental with recordings of astronauts talking over the music.  The astronaut recordings are included on other songs, adding to the space theme of the entire CD.  The songs following all tell seriously about a loss, loneliness or pain, with the exception of “Shadow of Def”.  It’s a mock hip-hop/rap song with lots of “street lingo” and some “Yo”s thrown in.  It seems silly to begin with, but the last stanza tells the listener to “turn off the TV, put down the phone, go talk to ‘JC’ and be alone”, letting the true meaning come through.  The more serious song “Two-Twenty-Nine” is about Roper’s painful loss of his grandmother and how he deals with it.  Samples and slower music add to the haunting quality of the piece.  His singing is very passionate and meaningful, so much so that the beautiful chorus comes easily to life:

In a world of dying children,
Rain never seems to cease,
I will hope for things unseen now,
One day my heart will be at peace,
I said I loved her and she knew it,
Whispered softly to the sky tonight,
She is warm and safe in Heaven,
In the loving arms of Jesus Christ.

Brave Saint Saturn easily draws away from the regularly upbeat sound of Five Iron Frenzy and goes for more of a darker mood and they pull it off excellently.  The music and lyrics are combined perfectly to create a spacey-pop odyssey that will be sure to make So Far From Home a hit.
 

Official Brave Saint Saturn Site