I have a friend from Venezuala who lives in a fairly redneck state in the Southern United States, she is an albino and she gets bullied viciously not only due to her race, but also because of her sensitivity to light and pale skin. It's stupid because she's one of the most beautiful ladies I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Our favorite genre is Black Metal, we were playing twenty questions a week ago, when she told me she's actually a fan of mine. So I joked about making a song for her, but I actually went through with it. I hope it's not too disappointing. The recording and lyrics are below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as-wUNy_D1E
Albino Maiden of Snow:
She holds the dagger
Bound with frost
She'll plunge it deep
Into my soul!
Her face so pale
The untold tales
Will she reveal
Tonight!
Maiden of snow
Maiden of winter
Whisper to show
Just where the dead roam
Maiden of ice
Maiden of frostbite
Crystalline eyes
Shine in the moonlight
I rode so far
Into the night
The mountains call
Alive!
I reach her palace
On the plataeu
Will she receive
Unknown!
Rider of dusk
Rider of Midnight
Offer her my
Storm for her blizzard
Ride until dawn
Ride until sunrise
Burning her ice
Burn through the frostbite
Wind from the East!
Snow from the South!
Thunder from the North!
Ice from her Breath!
Heart of ice
Heart of ice
Trapped in vice with a heart of ice
Heart of ice
Heart of ice
You'll think twice when you've paid the price
(Solo)
Midnight shall come
When theres nowhere to run
And you'll capture the soul
Of the one who's undone
I remember a time when
We danced in the flames
In the middle of spring
With our hearts free of shame
Hey there,
In the spirit of Review Day, I am here to review your elegant song!
Oh wait, did I say elegant? I meant satanic.. xD<3
In the second stanza, in the line before last, you wrote:
“Her face so pale
The untold tales
Will she reveal
Tonight!”
I feel as though it might flow better if you make the third line
“Will she reveal them*”
Other than that, I can’t exactly see anything else to adjust to make it sound any better. As for the song itself, it is both deep and dark, just what I would have expected from you. As for the link, the guitar sounds absolutely impeccable. I love the way it sounds for the chorus, as well as the shrill note in the beginning.
Overall, I really love your song and would love to hear more of your work! Great job, and keep up the good work, Boggers!
I hope that this review could help you in some way.
If you ever need me, feel free to drop by either on my wall or inbox me something, and I’d be glad to help you out with anything, or simply just to talk about the revisions I have made.
Yours always,
Euph
Thanks for your comments, the reason I didn't say "Will she reveal them" is because he was expecting her to reveal more than just that. The whole thing is very open for your own interpretation, with only a few concrete facts revealed, so I left that part general too. =) And I don't mean "reveal more" in a sexual manner either...
Always fun playing said shrill notes, us guitar worshipers call then "squealies" (always gives me a giggle when someone else says it XD) as a nickname, I like to use them sparingly and that seemed like the perfect opportunity rather than letting the second power chord ring out for two bars.
I still haven't thought of a new name for the project, I haven't given it much thought in all honesty but maybe when the album's done and I decide on the direction I'm going to go with it all then it'll be easier to think of something appropriate.
Cheers again!
Hi, Bog!
I got wicked excited to see there's a recording of this. It's not often I get to listen to the lyrics with the music! (Sad, right?) So weee! This'll be fun!
First of all, who was on guitar? Tell them they were awesome. Love that guitar. I like the pace and rhythm, too. It flowed very nicely in the recording.
Interesting that you're into Black Metal. That definitely puts some perspective on the piece. I'm not a fan of the genre for various reasons, but I'll give the best review I can!
Revealing untold tales wasn't ever referenced again. It does imply a sort of mysterious aura about this girl, which is cool, but I'd have liked to see it crop up again? Tie this detail with the rest? It's been made a bit more significant than possibly intended, too. Food for thought!
I really like what you did with the cold metaphor. You reference so many cold metaphors that are all related to each other, so that was awesome.
The last stanza was an interesting way to end. In fact, it seemed to have introduced more points, and doing that in conclusions is generally bad. One has to be careful with that. This stanza particularly tells us something about flames and spring and that wasn't ever mentioned ajsdkfl;asdfasdf. Confused!
Also, random thought, but no west?!
The lyrics are simple, but I feel that simplicity is generally favored upon by this genre of music. It paints the picture very nicely. I'd have liked to see more story in it, but I imagine that's pushing it beyond its genre limits. I don't know. I'll let that thought sit in your head for a bit anyway!
Well done. Good luck with your album!
Keep writing!
Jabber, the One and Only!
Spoiler
Hi there, thank you for the review. I know what you mean about lyrics being posted without videos/audio files. To me lyrics ALWAYS sound a bit cheesy when I read them without any recording, not sure if you generally feel that way when you normally read them? It is me doing the guitars, vocals, bass and I programmed the drums using a drum machine, it's a solo album.
Thank you for the compliment on the cold metaphors, since her skin is so pale she reminds me of winter and ice each time I see her, so I couldn't help but stress that to be honest.
The "danced in the flames with our hearts free of shame" part was really a reference to how we innocently experimented/flirted with danger together before we both became very corrupted people in various regards.
In the "North, South, East, Breath" (I giggled while typing that) section, I considered using "West" but I thought that was obviously predictable and since "Breath" does slightly resemble "West" when spoken out loud I decided to go with that since it was the last line in the section and I felt it helped build the adrenaline up a little.
Yeah, simplicity is generally favored in this genre. It's about more of a raw sound where people let dangerous emotions come out through the music than it is about acrobatic playing, obscure effects processing and whatnot.
As for the stories about her that are untold, they're certainly best left that way, since it's about a real person I feel that I have no right to go into vivid detail about her past even if I haven't revealed her name.
Thanks again for the review.
Hey there Wraith!
Alright so this is interesting, I didn't really like the audio because I found it too flat and there wasn't enough variation in tempt/ tone for my liking. I've heard worse though and there's some cool music going on there it's just the way the words were put across that wasn't doing it for me and I think part of the trouble is that your lyrics need some variation in sentence structure. I'll hopefully explain what I mean better as I give you a few specific comments:
She holds the dagger
Bound with frost
She'll plunge it deep
Into my soul! [Okay so when I read this, I expected the beat to be slow at first, much like it was, but then for the last two lines to be quicker/ for there to be less gap between them. Then again, I also imagined it being sung in a strong, masculine voice with lots of emotion behind it. I didn't expect the... what do you call that, scream metal? That's more a matter of personal taste though I'm sure.]
Maiden of ice
Maiden of frostbite
Crystalline eyes
Shine in the moonlight [Not sure that I like this stanza as much as the others. I'm finding it hard to pin point what it is though, sorry.]
I rode so far
Into the night
The mountains call
Alive! [Alright so I'm going to try to explain what I mean by repetetive tempo. I'm probably using that word wrong by the way as I'm more a poet than a song writer so bare with me. You always have four lines. The first three lines are always a simple statement and then the last is the conclusion. There's never statement, statement, conclusion, statement, statement, conclusion. Or other ways of mixing it up. After a while of listening it just starts to feel flat and I stop listening to the words and start tuning out. It's good to return to a familiar rhythm every now and then because then where the listeners get lost in the more complicated verses, they can suddenly be like, 'Oh I know this part!' and it draws them back in. What you have though is the same throughout, until that part at the end. Hopefully that makes more sense now.]
I reach her palace
On the plataeu
Will she receive
Unknown! [The fragmentation is starting to bother me. I want some description! I know this is metal but a little wouldn't hurt. What's her palace like or the plataeu? What lives there, if anything?]
The next two sections are pretty cool and I like how their rhythm overlaps. I think that's the first variation in the beat and it's refreshing.
Wind from the East!
Snow from the South!
Thunder from the North!
Ice from her Breath! [What happened to West? I'm not sure if I like or dislike that you moved away from my expectations.]
Alright! I think part of what I'm missing is I'd have liked just a few more slivers of plot to this. It seems very open ended and I'm not sure what the conflict is? Well actually I know it's that people bully her for how she is, but I wanted to see more of that in here, more of the knight coming to rescue the damsel, but on a darker scale. I liked that you had the rider and then memories in there of her and things they've done together, I'd just maybe have liked a little something more.
But it's generally good and I could see this playing in rock/ metal clubs. In all honesty, I've heard worse come on at Spiders. Usually I skip the metal ones that are more scream than song and go find myself another drink, but I listened all the way through this one so you're earning a few points there.
Sorry I haven't been very helpful, you might find somebody who understand the genre to be a better critiquer, but feel free to ask any questions you might have ^^
Heather xxx
Hi there, thank you for the review. I have to say that you're the first person to tell me that it sounds "flat" (upon re-reading your review I was wondering if you meant that exclusively about the lyrics not the instruments?), I'm actually quite surprised by this given that I play more sharp chords than flat and balanced ones. XD
As for the vocal style, that's 100% the "norm" in the genre (us recording artists tend to refer to all growl/scream style vocals as "distorted vocals" or just "dist vox" for short). It's very seldom you'll hear "clean" vocals in Black Metal songs and when you do it's normally a folk style hum or eerie sounding bass choir hum. So I agree, that is definitely a matter of personal taste.
I considered it, but I decided against speeding up the tempo (of the drums in particular) or even doing double time in the buildup to the "Maiden of snow" and "Rider of dusk" sections as they are very explosive sections, I felt they were more powerful if I didn't do anything to alert/warn the listener that they were coming. I have a slight pause later on in the song before coming back in guitars blazing (pardon the lame pun) and with a long scream to achieve the same effect.
Eek, I didn't even notice I'd used groups of four lines for the lyrics in each section. Thank you for pointing this out, I'll be sure to refer back to this to avoid doing so in future works. This is the part that made your review helpful and I really cannot thank you enough for it.
As above in my response to another person's review I chose to use "breath" instead of "west" as they sound a bit similar when spoken out loud and to build up some more adrenaline before the next explosive section. I'm sorry that you found this irritating.
As for more plot, there are several reasons why I did not tell and explain the story in vivid detail. A huge part of the genre's ideology if not the biggest is "individualism", stressing the point that people need to open their minds and think for themselves. Would you have enjoyed it more if I revealed exactly what happened, what separated them, what others had done to her?
Basically all I wanted to reveal was just enough to get the imagination going and for people to fill the blanks in for themselves. So what I gave out was the fact that the two knew each other but obviously hadn't seen one another in a long time. Also that the rider was having thoughts that she might be hostile toward him as well, despite them being "close" in the past, though he was uncertain about this. I felt that I revealed enough of her/their past by saying "I remember a time when we danced in the flames, in the middle of spring with our hearts free of shame." Which was a reference to them innocently dabbling in something potentially dangerous together, though it's left to you to ponder what exactly.
It's not really the type of genre that suits having a knight in shining armor (so to speak) come along and rescue her from her plight. It's definitely better suited to mysterious and morbid tales. While I'm on this topic I have to say that I considered making this album a concept album. But I decided against this since it is my first album and I felt that it's not best to be tied to one topic on your first record. Though I am already having thoughts about the second album which I'm considering making a concept album about the work of a medieval painter that I love.
Thank you for listening to it from beginning to end despite generally not enjoying metal genres. That is rather flattering. But most of all thank you for pointing out the whole "four lines" issue!
I'd love to hear your reflection of thoughts on my reply if you have the time. =)
Cheers,
Wraith
Hopefully you'll get a notification for this, I'm not entirely sure as I haven't tried replies to replies before. Fun, fun!
Okay so by flat I chose a terrible word as I did mean the lyrics, I meant that the structure of the words were lacking in variation. It really was just part of the four lines comment as the instruments were great.
On plot, I wouldn't want the entire story but as it stands, there isn't even enough for me to infer that someone else hurt her. It's far too open ended and as much as I like filling in the blanks, when those consist of 'They were together. They did dangerous things. Now they're apart and he doesn't know if she'll welcome him' it feels like I'm having to do far too much work. Perhaps that's another reason why I don't get on with the genre though.
That makes sense about the knight not really fitting in then, but perhaps you can still find some way to bring in this idea that she's been hurt by others or that she's generally 'unwanted' but not to him.
Hopefully that's a little clearer,
Heather xxx
Thanks for clearing it up about the "flat" thing. I guess that is a personal preference thing then about how open/closed you make things. I take after my mother in that regard, she enjoyed stories more when they were left wide open to the imagination. My father on the other hand wanted everything explained in vivid detail so he didn't have to do much thinking. I suppose everyone has their "balance" and another factor is your reason for listening, which will be why the sub-genre has a relatively small yet "cult-like" following. Cheers for your feedback. =)
Well, it may not be my pick of music.. but the lyrics seem pretty good:)
They have a good rhythm and the word choice is is really good too!
However, (perhaps its a common thing in the genre, I wouldnt know), but I would put more varity in the structure. Theres no hook/ or chorus.. and that makes it very repetitive. But dont mistake that with the repetition you have in the words, I think they're nicely done.
Its really cool though, and your friend must love it if she's into this music. I even checked out the recording, but (no offence) could listening to the whole thing because my internet is soooo slow, and I didnt want to wait 10 minutes. Sorry:)
Though seriously, nice lyrics:P
Hi there, thanks for your feedback. =) It's uncommon for Black Metal songs to have choruses, we tend to have more transitions in our song. Which is one reason why I'm confused as to why you said that it's repetitive. As there are more transitions on the whole than in genres such as rock and pop, or even other subgenres of metal. Also, each section doesn't appear more than twice in the song, with three repeats of sections such as verses being common in many genres.
If it's not too much trouble, would you mind elaborating by any chance? You did mention that you didn't listen to the whole recording, if you had then you would have heard the eight transitions in the song, with around five transitions being the standard. I did do my best to prevent it from being repetitive which is why I opted for two repeats maximum instead of three.
If the transistions were instrumental, I wouldn't have heard them. Sorry.
I suppose I ment the syllabol count/ rhythm was repeated. I guess all songs do do that in the verses, and I'm just used to the chorus breaking it up. I'm sure the transitions you mentioned do act as a divider of the verses, just I didn't know they were there.
Thank you for clearing this up. =)