NEW--
ARCHANGEL
Time Is A Blade
"My eyes say too muchI'll hide, hide, hide them from you"
Anna+ guitar+stool=The Internet prize winning classic. Also a storming club anthem, courtesy of Silvermania . One of those songs you'll tell your grandkids about.
Love Me Too
"One day we won't be who we are"
There really should be a 'handle with care- fragile' sticker on this. God, I'm depressed, and there's a tingle up my spine and I'm hugging my pillow like there's no tomorrow...
I Get Nervous
"Saw someone kissing someone I'd love to kiss"
This is the track that broke Silverman to me. Stumbling around peoplesound.com (where the Archangel CD curiously lacks Gun At My Head) at a very nervous time of my life when everything was going to hell I found this gem and I played it to death. My French being somewhere in the English Channel, I was glad the translation was on the mp3.com DAM CD. It's read by Veronique Martin and the relavance is.... well, YOU decide:
"Who was the Sphinx? A strange character, half-man half-beast. In Greek mythology, he lived on a rock just outside Thebes and no traveller could escape him. To each passer-by he would ask the same question: "What creature is in the morning on four legs, at noon on two and in the evening on three?" The answer was simply: man. What confused passers-by was not only the strange way the enigma was formulated, but also the fact that man is a profound mystery to himself. And this has not changed: we understand more and more things that happen in nature and in our bodies, but the complex world of our thoughts and emotions often remains a big question. Perhaps then the most important and occult (that is hidden, secret) aspect of the question of the Sphinx is simply: what is the essence of Man? Like the Sphinx, Man is double: at the same time material and spiritual, scientific and religious, rational and imaginative, barbaric and civilised, destructive and creative. These opposites are not contraries; instead, they complement each other. They are the two sides of the coin on which is impressed the archetype of Man. Creation, which tries to express abstract ideas or impulses in a physical work, can help us unify these opposites in us. And it is not the privilege of an artistic or intellectual elite; it is open to all."
All My Life
"All my life we buy dreams, sugar coated to make them taste so sweet"
An apocalypse of personal proportions. A sudden flash of waking, life-changing, consciousness. Also the track that contains the 'sounds like a band' phrase 'you mutilated angel'. Stop flapping and snap out of it people.
How Cruel
"If you're not fcuking up, you're fcuking down"
Gave me a jolt at first to hear the f-word in such a lush setting, but hey, that's the idea. More 'never again' introspection. The long playout on the end seems to travel from Hell right up into the clouds and you can see the world just curving away from you in all directions. Inspirational.
The Blue Tree
"Niagara Falls needs a lot of rainy days"
I don't have a clue what this is about. But at the same time, it wraps me in a warm blanket and I can hear exactly what Anna's saying. It's a rare thing to be able to use words that skillfully.
Gun At My Head
"I know I'm wrong but I'm not feeling sorry, I don't mind, I'm not the feeling sorry kind"
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Tough call, but some people are better at it than others.
Black Rainbow
"I know you really want me, but you can't have me"
Practically a companion piece to GAMH, if either of them were companion- having types.
