THE OCEAN AND THE SUN

The fist album I heard from The Sound Of Animals Fighting was "The Tiger and The Duke" and I thought it was really good and made me think of The Fall Of Troy a little bit but with this album they completely difference themselves from that genre. Everything is so well structured! Every song is a masterpiece with their own "thing" that gets to you and keeps you hooked. The first listen won't get you addicted of course but this album really grows on you. The more you'll listen to it the more you'll like it or even love it.

The band offers great experimentations and melodies. What I really like about the melodies on the album is that they are adapted to an "abnormal" structure and they fit perfectly. Some melodies extend to 5 measures and they are able to fit perfectly 9/8 and 7/8 time signatures one after another. Some bands use weird time signatures and the result plain sucks but not with this band. They really mastered the complexities that music can have and it shows.

At first I thought the interludes weren't necessary but it's inevitably a part of the album. It was made this way for a reason and they add a certain feel to the whole thing. They take you from one track to another. They tell you about the band's philosophy. Even in some tracks there is some narrating in other languages than English like Arabic and French. I don't understand the Arabic but it's still beautiful t hear and it's a glimpse of another culture. I think that's what the band wanted to put in their album : unity.

5/5

The Sound Of Animals Fighting are an experimental band with great instrumentation, beautiful guitar melodies, amazing drums and loads of all kinds of experiences.

After a short intro, The Ocean And The Sun comes in, and this one is one of the weakest songs in the album, it's just uninteresting, fortunately it is followed by I, The Swan, a great song, the children voices fit strangely well and the explosion by the end of the song is epic, a great one. Another Leather Lung is another great song, with really weird screaming and out-of-this-world drumming, contrasting with the calm melodies of the rest of the song. Cellophane has one of the most beautiful guitar melodies ever, really, then the voice comes in, softly, you can't understand a word he says, but it doesn't matter, the depth of this song is incredible, meanwhile the song accelerates until an insane drum break and a really weird guitar solo, one of the greatest songs on the album. Uzbekistan is the most experimental track ever, is completely insane, the weirdest drumming, the altered voices, the hypnotizing synth, all the noise, it's just spectacular. The album finishes with On The Occasion Of Wet Snow a song as weak as the first one.

On the negative side, first: fillers! although Chinese New Year is entertaining, Lude is completely pointless and Ahab is just noise; second: woman talking! in almost every song there's a woman in a awful monologue, with a monotonic voice, really irritating, talking about saving the world or whatever, almost excruciating.

A great album, very experimental, very original, really well composed, great musicians, an excellent album.

Ahh where to begin with this one

for starters i thought this was a much weaker effort than lover, the lord has left us

while i thas a few good songs in my opinion its a rather weak album espially after teh improvment they showed on lover the lord has left us

lets evaluate the tracks shall we

1.)Intro just a filler track in my opinion it has no purpose other than to add slightly more texture to the album overall a very weak track

2.)Ocean & The Sun

my favourite track on the whole album this is what i expected of TSOAF when i went to get this album it is a greact track with slighty distorted vocals and great ambient noises thoughout. a great track

3.)I,The Swan

another great track this was the song that made me think i had another great album on my hands

4-6) these 3 tracks made me change that thought very quickly though while they had some good parts i didn't enjoy them and they seemed to drag on and on while i listened to them not very strong effort

7)the heraldic beak of the manufacturer's medallion

a song that made me get my hopes up again with a great gutiar begining this track is excellent from all point of view it soon breaks into a screamoesque verse though but still sounds great. a bit difficult to understand teh lyrics though. it then slows down a bit (maybe 10bpm) and becomes an amzing track with great ad-libbing with acoustic gutiar backing. then back into the verse the song then proceeds with a awesome instrumental break. then breaks back into the verse and just sounds AMAZING. it remidns me of why i love prog rock

8-9) after song 7 tracks 8 and 9 disapoint chinese new year is some children chanting? and ubekistan reminds me of why progressive rock became unpopular with huge excesses that really shouldn't be there and make the song much weaker then what it could of been

10-11) they weren't that bad actually the last 3 songs on this album may have just saved it from me giving it a 2 star rating

12.) On the ocassion of wet snow

i do enjoy slower songs and this track is no excpetion its just a beatiful way to end of the album and is what unltimatly saves this albu mfro mbein ga failure in my opinion

overall a solid 3 star rating from me i expect better from such a talented band