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Birds And Buildings - Bantam to Behemoth CD (album) cover

BANTAM TO BEHEMOTH

Birds And Buildings

 

Eclectic Prog

4.22 | 541 ratings

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Marty McFly
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
5 stars 1)Most complex sounding noise ever (at least speaking about first track) 2)I'm hell right that this is a masterpiece. Only thing to accomplish is to prove it. 3)It's very strange, I've never been so sure (2nd) that clicking on five star, reading disclaimer and trying to explain this choice, was right choice. 4)My apologies, it's not noise, it's jazz fusion (just joke)

"Birds Flying Into Building", what a perfect name. It resembles cover art, which is another thing to talk about. I better start with telling story from beginning. This weird painting on cover is not original one. Hieronymus Bosch, 15th century painter from Netherlands once created masterpiece of his genre, called "The Garden of Earthly Delights". It's quite large one and this cover is maybe 1/30 of it. I knew it since time I first seen this record. But something wasn't right here, something was different. So I did few tests, conducted some research (you know, laboratory, big university teams, these things) and truth is quite shocking, as it is easy. It's horizontally flipped. One Czech prog band, Progres 2 is their name, do have song about this man, called (in translation) "Planet of Hieronymuss Bosch" and which is very weird one, even more than weirdness of this painting. Speaking of which, this Birds album ends this circle somehow. Everything fits perfectly and pieces are in place. Oh yes, this picture is one of two pictures in my room. Other one is Hell, also by him. Every part of it is well known for me, every animal, person, plant, colour, everything has its place and meaning. I wonder how he avoided being tortured, beheaded or burned at stake by inquisition (all these demons which he created, so long ago, in dark times of mediev(i)al ages).

So again (consider it as take two, it never happened to me yet that I would have to start talking about song again because I forgot to talk about IT, but this review is unique - mostly for me), "Birds Flying Into Building", is epo-picturous track (something like eponymous, but not with name of album, but picture of album, but feel free not to believe me, because I've just created this word and it sounds so funny/nice to me that I'll keep it). Just look att the picture, you'll see a swarm of birds flying through some structure, whose base structure looks like some hut (you know, these walls, hole inside), or cave maybe. Or (his imagination was wild) something completely different (although my imagination just drawn this from Monty Python as most of us know). And labyrinth/cave like structure on top of it. They're flying and song itself is running. And it's run of madman, trying to get away from all his troubles, but then, reversely (3:29-3:49) is something similar. He's still trying to run away, but now he's like in fast car on open highway (or coastline road), accelerating as much as possible, riding his Cadillac, wind tormenting (sorry, devilish influence of this thing, I meant ruffling) his hair. But that's just one more clear to see part, see how is very first part more and more complex, structuring itself (00:00-00:56), which I see as perfect example of JazzRockFusion genre. Then we get some rest, but not for too long, just few seconds of peace, before hell breaks free to even more layers. And more and more, it seems that your brain could make big KaBoom in any second from this rush, from this attack of pure prog sounds (their perfection is still present, even it's melodic and interesting in every moment), this head-on interception of never ending (story?) flow of sounds. Well, I wrote that some songs were flowing easily in past reviews. It's true. One sure thing about this is that is flows. Maybe rushes. But easily ? Also, but differently, that you would expect. Or perhaps you wouldn't expect nothing less than fire sweeping miles along where these 9 minutes and 12 seconds full of music "flowed".

As I said, cover is a important thing. I think that entire record is inspired by this image. Some are more, some are less (it's my theory, it may be true, or not, but at least it's nice sounding one). Genesis tried with their first album to resemble biblical themes with bigger version of original painting. They quite failed, or at least wasn't so successful as they could be.

Other songs are similar, some walks in softer way, others in as hard as first one. There are again relaxing parts. Whole record is with ideas under roof filled overcrowded house full of people who all wants to say something so they shout all together. And it works pretty fine. Sometimes they are quiet and just few of them talks (these are rare times). OK, this thing about inspiration from this artwork is disputable.

Can I give something else, anything less than 5 stars ?

Marty McFly | 5/5 |

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