Shallowdiver – October Valentine
Genre: Post-Hardcore, Screamo, Emo
Similar artists: Silverstein, Underoath, The Used, Senses Fail
The only thing that matters is the last word that one can deliver. The punchline, the conclusion, and the end of the story. Those are the things that our brains have been taught to remember. And why not? With millions of songs available to us at any time, should we really chastise ourselves for not remembering the chord change in a song we briefly heard two months ago?
With that in mind, rock music and entertainment of all sorts end up being a game about who is able to make themselves remembered the longest. It’s no wonder that some bands dress up in neon-colored clothes, wear gruesome masks to cover their faces, or, in the case of G.G. Allin, create an act that involves heavy use of bodily fluids.
There are other ways to be remembered, of course. Regardless of the style of music performed, the artists that can pack their songs with hooks, catchy riffs, or quotable lines are always set to win. Shallowdiver’s earnest screamo of October Valentine is bubblegum despair music. Yes, all of the pain is captured here pristinely. But, if you want people to respond to it, you need to hook them up. This is what Shallowdiver do, along with their intense post-hardcore jousting.
Carlos Gayotto – Cosmic Love
Similar artists: Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Mark Knopfler
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Alternative Rock
D’you know what your favorite singers and guitar players are likely doing right about now? I do. They’re practicing scales. Ascending, descending, sideways. That’s how the majority of them end up being so good once they’ve properly managed to utilize their innate talents. And, because through their ambition, they all practice the same things, they end up sounding the same. Brilliant, but the same.
It’s amazing how quickly the ears get bored of beautiful voices that can reach the heavens and hit a high G in head voice. Attend any respectable metal festival, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s then that you learn to appreciate the subtleties of the human and the singers who can transfer emotion efficiently through their voices while using as little trickery as possible.
Carlos Gayotto’s Cosmic Love is a beautifully worn-out, grown-up kind of song. The voice, similar in tone to that of Roger Waters, felt like the voice of rock music, older and experienced itself. Why does it work? Because it takes seconds to feel what the Gayotto is trying to convey and because, ehm, you can understand the lyrics. The latter, particularly, is not exactly a priority in modern rock. Like Water, Leonard Cohen, or Bob Dylan, songs sometimes are best whispered rather than sung.