The Knife - Tomorrow, In a Year

Based on the life of Charles Darwin, Tomorrow, In a Year is an epic, tense buildup of all kinds of scary/awesome. Some of the coolest, most unique music I've heard in a while. The album is not without some flaws, though. For instance, Tomorrow uses mezzo-soprano opera-style singing throughout many of the songs. Sometimes this singing works fine and sometimes it doesn't. The album has kind of a rough start as well. The first two songs are actually really cool, and act as a really cool intense comeup for this jagged, powerful trip. Unfortunately, the songs that come after make the whole album fall flat... Here, the band is mostly just dicking around with noise and opera vocals.

But there is sweet redemption. Once the song Schoal Swarm Orchestra kicks in, you're reminded what exactly this band is trying to do in the first place - create an epic that recreates the gravity of Charles Darwin and his discovery of the theory of evolution. What better way to start back on this journey than to be treated to various field noises -wind blowing, birds and bugs- mixed with unrecognizable buzzes and whatnot. In short, its really cool and wild, and I dig it. I mean, if you're making an album about Darwin, you kind of have to use some abrasive field noises, or else its not doing the man justice. Darwin wasn't a softie about this shit.

So, the album thunders on with much better attempts at capturing the essence of Darwin and his ideas. Intense and absorbing. What's impressive is how they allude with such power and intensity, while keeping it all under control. They never really go wild with what they have on their hands here. They present it, in full force, but they never get too carried away with the glory and the insanity, and that's what shows true musicianship.

In short, the last chunk of the album is some of the coolest stuff I've heard in 2010. A must-listen for those inclined. The song Colouring of Pigeons is one of the very few songs I know that gives me goosebumps throughout.

But even with some great songs finally, these guys misstep with the album again by having two songs that, as cool as they are, just don't really fit with the dark, restrained intensity they finally got their hands on here. Songs like Seeds and The Height of Summer are just too happy sounding, and though they are great songs, they tarnish what what just created here. Exactly what was created here, though, I can only say with uncertainty. Something really powerful and unique. A tribal, animalistic force that's at once beautiful and scary. When these guys possessed it during these jams, it was not abused. They used it effectively. They knew that if they let it all out like a bunch of amateurs, it would've been such an assault on our sensibilities that we probably wouldn't have even recognized what was being used. A waste. Too high a frequency. Maybe that's what was going on with the beginning of the album. I hated it/didn't hear it until they toned it down and brought it to our level.

But, like the atomic elements synthesized by man (like Einsteinium and Americanium and whatnot) it's nearly impossible to have the particles of these atoms to stay attracted for more than a second before the whole thing scatters into the more natural molecular structures. The same can be said about this album. Yes it's a flawed, scattershot piece, but just think about what they were trying to tame here. Fire is even prettier if you could hold it in your hands, but could you?? These guys didn't just have Darwin to deal with here. They had something that shouldn't be held, at least not in this form. It can't be. For one thing, it's intangible, maybe even nonexistent. But they had it. For a second.

Best Songs (and believe me, these ones are good)

Colouring of Pigeons

Tomorrow In a Year

Schoal Swarm Orchestra

The Height of Summer

Here's the album

Colouring of Pigeons: Best song ever made?