Imaris
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Actually, I created this thread just to have a place to post my impressions of the concert. :
First, a few words about their new album. The label couldn't come up with anything better than to release a "best of" album for the band's anniversary, but Christopher Jonsson categorically rejected this proposal: firstly, he doesn't see the point in compilation albums of the best songs, and secondly, he thinks it's an extremely stupid, unoriginal, and pointless idea. Christopher wanted to do something very unexpected and original, while Nuclear Blast, which has never really trusted Therion in this regard and has always been left in the lurch, decided this time not to accept Christopher's rather extreme conditions. The band and the label never reached a consensus, so Jonsson released the new album independently. He could have gone to another label, but by accepting help from Nuclear Blast's competitors, he would have ruined the quite good relationship he has with them.
What's special about the new album? The fact that absolutely no one expected to hear from Therion a collection of popular French songs from the 50s and 60s, performed in the genre of symphonic metal.
The band organized the Flowers of Evil tour to support the new album and celebrate their anniversary. In Russia, they performed, as far as I remember, in Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg, and Moscow.
The Moscow concert was at the Milk Moscow club. I hadn't been there before (I haven't really been anywhere in Moscow). The club seemed quite spacious to me, but despite this, it was so crowded with fans that it could compete with the Chinese subway.
I went to the concert with a classmate. Although we arrived about forty minutes before the start, we were a little late and missed, I don't know, how many songs. Most likely, we arrived just as the first song, Son of the Son, was starting.
We couldn't get close to the stage, although we really wanted to, but for a while we kept moving closer and closer until we were approximately in the center of the crowd, and in front of us, people were standing so close that we would have had to walk on heads.
For about a song and a half, we had to listen to people complaining (quite understandably) about girls on shoulders blocking the view, and then we just stood in front of them and listened to the music.
The club has bad sound engineers. The drums were too loud, while the lead guitar was barely audible. And the keyboards were just strange – sometimes they were audible, sometimes they were almost inaudible. And that's very bad, because, as it turned out, Therion doesn't sound nearly as cool without the orchestra (who would have thought?), and if the keyboards are practically non-existent, and the drums are overemphasized, then it turns out... no, not a mess, but just something not very high quality.
The band performed with the full lineup, as described in the post, along with a keyboardist I didn't know and a vocalist of Asian appearance with blonde hair. She sang badly, unlike Lori Lewis, whose operatic soprano was so powerful that the whole hall vibrated. Christopher played rhythm guitar. Snowy Shaw, a well-known vocalist who has performed extensively with Therion and recorded vocals for the band, unfortunately is not participating in the tour, which is a pity, because he leads the show wonderfully.
Therion didn't play any songs from their early albums (and they always included something from their death metal period in the concert program). They also somehow neglected their 2010 album, "Sitra Ahra," as well as the semi-albums "A'arab Zaraq Lucid Dreaming" (1997) and "Crowning of Atlantis" (1999). At least one song was performed from other releases. Of course, several songs from the new album were played.
In the performance itself, there was nothing particularly special, no theatricality. That is, there were some clearly planned appearances of the musicians from behind the curtain or from the wings, and there were also some improvised jokes, but there was nothing particularly interesting. Too bad, I thought they would make the anniversary concert more interesting.
There was quite a bit of merchandise: several similar T-shirts (all black), a cap, a scarf, magnets, CDs. I think that's all, if you don't count a rather unusual item – the well-known board game 011, created with the participation of the band Therion, in which even the characters are members of the band. The game's atmosphere magically combines steampunk and Scandinavian mythology. Although this box costs three thousand rubles, my classmate and I bought it together. I won't go into describing this wonder now; you can find information about the game on the internet, and I'll write about my impressions of the first game later.
Overall, I don't regret going to the concert, although I expected more from it. The fact that the music itself doesn't really fit my current musical mood also has a negative impact on my impression, but, unfortunately, you can't postpone a concert to a more suitable time, unlike, for example, listening to a new album by the band.
By the way, about the band's new album. Because of the same mood, I didn't listen to it before the concert, but I decided to try it right after. That is, I just listened to it for the first time. You can't write much after the first impression, so I'll limit myself to a couple of sentences.
I wasn't expecting much from the album (because the last three albums – Sirius B, Gothic Kabbalah, and Sitra Ahra – didn't make any impression on me), and I didn't get much. Although it looks strange – to cover French songs from half a century ago in symphonic metal, but in reality, it turned out not so interesting. Yes, there's a new sound again, yes, Therion has done something new again, but it sounds somehow... It doesn't impress me, in general, I don't see anything special here. And there's not much "Therion-ness" here.
However, I will listen further, I will try to choose a suitable mood, maybe I will find something brilliant for myself.
Added 3 minutes ago
And yes, I didn't have any pictures taken of me, but there are stupid video recordings and pictures of the band on stage, taken with my pathetic phone camera. Tomorrow I'll see if there's anything there that isn't embarrassing to post in this thread, and I'll post it.
First, a few words about their new album. The label couldn't come up with anything better than to release a "best of" album for the band's anniversary, but Christopher Jonsson categorically rejected this proposal: firstly, he doesn't see the point in compilation albums of the best songs, and secondly, he thinks it's an extremely stupid, unoriginal, and pointless idea. Christopher wanted to do something very unexpected and original, while Nuclear Blast, which has never really trusted Therion in this regard and has always been left in the lurch, decided this time not to accept Christopher's rather extreme conditions. The band and the label never reached a consensus, so Jonsson released the new album independently. He could have gone to another label, but by accepting help from Nuclear Blast's competitors, he would have ruined the quite good relationship he has with them.
What's special about the new album? The fact that absolutely no one expected to hear from Therion a collection of popular French songs from the 50s and 60s, performed in the genre of symphonic metal.
The band organized the Flowers of Evil tour to support the new album and celebrate their anniversary. In Russia, they performed, as far as I remember, in Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg, and Moscow.
The Moscow concert was at the Milk Moscow club. I hadn't been there before (I haven't really been anywhere in Moscow). The club seemed quite spacious to me, but despite this, it was so crowded with fans that it could compete with the Chinese subway.
I went to the concert with a classmate. Although we arrived about forty minutes before the start, we were a little late and missed, I don't know, how many songs. Most likely, we arrived just as the first song, Son of the Son, was starting.
We couldn't get close to the stage, although we really wanted to, but for a while we kept moving closer and closer until we were approximately in the center of the crowd, and in front of us, people were standing so close that we would have had to walk on heads.
For about a song and a half, we had to listen to people complaining (quite understandably) about girls on shoulders blocking the view, and then we just stood in front of them and listened to the music.
The club has bad sound engineers. The drums were too loud, while the lead guitar was barely audible. And the keyboards were just strange – sometimes they were audible, sometimes they were almost inaudible. And that's very bad, because, as it turned out, Therion doesn't sound nearly as cool without the orchestra (who would have thought?), and if the keyboards are practically non-existent, and the drums are overemphasized, then it turns out... no, not a mess, but just something not very high quality.
The band performed with the full lineup, as described in the post, along with a keyboardist I didn't know and a vocalist of Asian appearance with blonde hair. She sang badly, unlike Lori Lewis, whose operatic soprano was so powerful that the whole hall vibrated. Christopher played rhythm guitar. Snowy Shaw, a well-known vocalist who has performed extensively with Therion and recorded vocals for the band, unfortunately is not participating in the tour, which is a pity, because he leads the show wonderfully.
Therion didn't play any songs from their early albums (and they always included something from their death metal period in the concert program). They also somehow neglected their 2010 album, "Sitra Ahra," as well as the semi-albums "A'arab Zaraq Lucid Dreaming" (1997) and "Crowning of Atlantis" (1999). At least one song was performed from other releases. Of course, several songs from the new album were played.
In the performance itself, there was nothing particularly special, no theatricality. That is, there were some clearly planned appearances of the musicians from behind the curtain or from the wings, and there were also some improvised jokes, but there was nothing particularly interesting. Too bad, I thought they would make the anniversary concert more interesting.
There was quite a bit of merchandise: several similar T-shirts (all black), a cap, a scarf, magnets, CDs. I think that's all, if you don't count a rather unusual item – the well-known board game 011, created with the participation of the band Therion, in which even the characters are members of the band. The game's atmosphere magically combines steampunk and Scandinavian mythology. Although this box costs three thousand rubles, my classmate and I bought it together. I won't go into describing this wonder now; you can find information about the game on the internet, and I'll write about my impressions of the first game later.
Overall, I don't regret going to the concert, although I expected more from it. The fact that the music itself doesn't really fit my current musical mood also has a negative impact on my impression, but, unfortunately, you can't postpone a concert to a more suitable time, unlike, for example, listening to a new album by the band.
By the way, about the band's new album. Because of the same mood, I didn't listen to it before the concert, but I decided to try it right after. That is, I just listened to it for the first time. You can't write much after the first impression, so I'll limit myself to a couple of sentences.
I wasn't expecting much from the album (because the last three albums – Sirius B, Gothic Kabbalah, and Sitra Ahra – didn't make any impression on me), and I didn't get much. Although it looks strange – to cover French songs from half a century ago in symphonic metal, but in reality, it turned out not so interesting. Yes, there's a new sound again, yes, Therion has done something new again, but it sounds somehow... It doesn't impress me, in general, I don't see anything special here. And there's not much "Therion-ness" here.
However, I will listen further, I will try to choose a suitable mood, maybe I will find something brilliant for myself.
Added 3 minutes ago
And yes, I didn't have any pictures taken of me, but there are stupid video recordings and pictures of the band on stage, taken with my pathetic phone camera. Tomorrow I'll see if there's anything there that isn't embarrassing to post in this thread, and I'll post it.