“Drop Zone”  The Delivery System – a review [Pt.1]

I really do enjoy experimenting with different sounds and exploring different genres, even though when creating I tend to gravitate back to my pop, folk rock, and rock roots – for those were the dominant musical forms during my most impressionable years. Still I admire and play around with various forms. Punk became 'a thing' from the mid-70's onward, and by that time my musical proclivities were already settled. But as the years have passed, I have become softer in my opinions. At one time, for example, I despised country and western music. That is no longer the case, as I actually admire a lot of C&W tunes. In part, my own softening has corresponded to a softening of genre lines. I find there is less and less difference between different musical strands. They have mingled and, as it were, intermarried and their products have traces of its various music progenitors. 

At the same time, the number of genres and sub-genres has proliferated in a very bewildering fashion. In this case, for example, I have no idea as to what would distinguish punk from post punk. I understand the implication, post punk literally means 'after' punk. And, in its infancy, punk was frequently puckish and silly, if it had a dark edge at all it was in its 'up yours' attitude to musical conventions such as harmony, melody, and other traditional musical elements. Inevitably, as happened also with rock, examples came along that were less flippant and more philosophical. And when you become more serious about your message you sometimes want a divorce with less serious examples of your craft. Perhaps that is why this is billed as post punk. Punk having become philoso-punk, so to speak. Not sure, in part because my own experience of punk is with the more radio friendly examples, and perhaps it has always been heavily political.

 Besides enjoying the experimentation in music, I enjoy reflecting on why our ideas of music change, what it stems from and what it indicates about us. So, before dealing with this song, I want to make a general comment about the spiritual nature of music in our times. No, I'm not going to preach, nor am I thinking of moral implications – not directly. What I find is that of all art-forms, music seems the most directly spiritual. It flows out of the emotional life of its creators with no intellectual filter, for at its essence music is devoid of words, it is a directly emotional communication. Once lyrics enter the equation, the artist is actually trying to direct, interpret, and explain what he or she feels in a more pointed fashion. It's a win and lose equation. But as to the music itself, it channels the emotion in a raw form. Lyrics are only successful and useful so long as they accurately agree with the music. That is why some musical forms are in agreement with lovely feelings, and other musical forms are in agreement with more difficult, dark, painful, and even dangerous feelings.

“Drop Zone”  The Delivery System – a review [Pt.2]

Musical forms at all times, in general, tend to agree with the social milieu in which they are formed. In times that admired order, music was orderly and obeyed strict rules. I simplify here, for the matter is very complex, but in our era we dwell with chaos, and yet with constant and insistent repetition. To me it is not surprising that our ideas of music are chaotic, but also repetitive in form and in presentation. We live with noise and so we make noisy music. Of course, we also crave peace and beauty, but we have a hard time finding it, so that even our ideas of beauty live beneath a hammer of repeated sounds.

What I am getting at, if it's not clear, is that punk is a natural child of a noisy society. Similarly, rap is a natural child of urban survivalist necessity. And, to extend the principle, new age and ambient sounds are escapist in nature. For we do want to escape -- or at least we do until we have given up hope. Metal music is, I think, stuff forged beyond the fires of hope. 

So, to this specimen, 'Drop Zone'. The song is a sermon of sorts. A warning, a protest without particular hope. Unless I completely misunderstand, it is a work of paranoia in a world where paranoia seems entirely reasonable. Close examination seems to indicate that it is a protest song, although I'm unclear about what particular incident it is chronicling.

Let's begin, then, with the lyrics. The following is how the song's meaning struck me on first consideration:

'They are up to no good!'

We all speak of 'they' -- of what they do and what they intend. Yet, of course, we don't know who they are. And everyone who speaks in this fashion constitutes part of 'they' to others. It's the third person. You don't speak TO them you speak OF them. One you speak TO -- 2nd person – has a potential relationship with you. This is not necessarily true of the 3rd person, whom you might never meet. It's a very natural garden for paranoia growth – the birth place of conspiracy theory. 

That is all true, I think, but it is not irrational. In the movie “The Matrix” the machines harvested electrical energy from humans kept alive in pods. In our case, the machines harvest economic information by closely monitoring our Internet activities. It has many parallels. We live vicariously through images as we live increasingly sedentary lives. Privacy is abolished. The skies are domed over with satellites that observe. And our physical activities are fed into a global network of indifferent intelligence, entirely devoted to conforming while purportedly informing.

“Drop Zone”  The Delivery System – a review [Pt.3]

We get carefully curated news feeds on our computers, phones, and tablets, friend suggestions, all tailored to our political appetites and proclivities. Right or left, it makes no difference, so long as you can be manipulated and harvested.

Black helicopters indeed!

My own initial tendency was to treat this song metaphorically, and to view the helicopters as representing the ubiquitous Big Brother presence in our world. Yet, most of the verses seem to be quite particular. One reminds me of the Hunger Games and another of Logan's Run – if anyone remembers that movie. Eventually, though, it seems ceratin that the threat of the black helicopters must be an attack involving acidic nerve gas, and not metaphorical at all. Perhaps a reference to what actually has happened in Syria in the not too distant past, for example.

I suppose that in a world that depersonalizes its inhabitants, brutalization must naturally follow. But brutality is as ancient as humanity, so we can't blame technology – technology just makes it all more impersonal.

Musically, this piece has a driving rhythm typical of punk. It has a minimal melody, which is again fairly common in punk tracks.  I admired the decision to do a completely instrumental iteration of the tune before the vocals began.

In all, I found this to be a cool track.

Where 3 equals average, 4 good, and 5 exceptional

Musicality............= 🎹🎹🎹
Lyricism................= 📄📄📄📄
Vocals ..................= 🎙️🎙️🎙️
Overall Appeal..= 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Production.........= ✅✅✅✅

					

					

						
waiting-on-the-soul-train by Ghetto Dogs
						

							

								waiting-on-the-soul-train - Soul train #rock #rnb waiting-on-the-soul-train by Ghetto Dogs
							
							
https://soundclick.com/song/14818622
							

						
					
				

Hopefully that's all you need I made the tune a free download also
Lyrics are posted there also.

“Far Cry” Lakky Ninja a review [In one part]

While I do want to encourage a variety of artists to submit their music, yet I have less to offer about some genres than others. In this case, the best I can do is describe what I hear and how it impacts me.

So, play by play, 14 seconds of gliding, slightly flanged synth, is then joined by an electro-beat, with a voice saying 'ight-ight-ight' over and over, which lasts until 31 seconds have elapsed when there is an explosion and a reflexing reverb. Following this the electro-beat resumes. Beneath the insistent beat, the same notes as in the intro continue, but the actual synth has morphed, I believe. At 51 seconds the beat suspends, leaving the synth accompanied by an anomalous reverberating sound to hold court, which it does until 1:07 when the beat resumes, now underlain by faint 'ooo' sounds. This obtains until 1:38 when the beat disassembles down to just the bass hit and then slowly reassembles to full health. By circa 2:00 minutes it is again in full bore with a nice skip double beat at the end of every second repeat – that's maybe the best part, I think. Then at 2:08 it experiences a dramatic downshift in tempo to perhaps half speed or less, after which it gradually fades in volume over a 40 second period.

And there you be.

The picture in the video intrigued me perhaps more than the music. What I found myself wondering about, is why two guys dressed in black outfits, and adorned with golden chains, are standing forlornly peering down, into bleak terrain, during a  snow  flurry. Are they looking for some lost article? They give that impression. Presumably it is a very small object, since nothing large is present, except the black basalt slab on which they are standing. Unless they are actually on the back of a whale and are wondering what on earth they shall do when it submerges beneath the frozen waters. That would make one stare, for sure. 

Well, the track did make me tap my hand to the beat in time, so it induces movement. Even my feet were moving and my toe-tapping. If I were younger I might even move my whole body. The beat has a good bass thump to it, and the sounds are varied enough to keep it interesting. The fact that there is variety within repetition prevents tedium. It's billed as industrial, and – when much younger -- having worked in a factory with rhythmic ball mills grinding vast amounts of carbon ink, my ear approves of the labelling. I think it is the sort of beat that might inspire stoned people to dance. And I guess you might enjoy listening to it if you had previously used it as a dance track.

I'm not stoned and I no longer dance, so as a source of listening pleasure, this has limited appeal to me, but then it is not  truly intended for careful listening, I think.

I'm not qualified to rate such a track. If it is intended to induce movement, it does, and that is good. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but keep creating! It is its own reward! Thanks for sharing.