Alternative Weekend: Focus on ‘Karnivool’

I have been posting most weekends using @detlev’s #metalweekend tag, but my main love of music is progressive and alternative music. Some of my posts have included these songs, but I feel they are not keeping with the spirit of metal.

I will continue to post article’s using #metalweekend occasionally but feel I have more to offer regarding these other genre’s that I am more familiar with.

Introducing #alternativeweekend. Post an article that highlights THREE great songs that are either progressive or alternative and use the tag #alternativeweekend or use the ‘Focus on’ series if you like. There are no rules, just make your own!

If you have a short story or something to offer regarding an opinion on your songs, then share it with us!

There’s some bands that I find are just so hard to crack and by that, I mean I can hear some potential in their music but it’s just not clicking. Maybe this is the reason that I miss so much good music. Sometimes I don’t try hard enough.

Dream Theater are an example of this, I have tried and tried to listen to 'A Change of Seasons', in this case a song recommended to me by @verhp11 but it just didn’t click.

The band I will write about today are almost an example of this. One song ‘Themata’ I had to put on repeat play in my car until I finally got it.

The great thing about these ‘inaccessible’ songs is that once they click, you start to hear more and more in the music. Subtleties that were not apparent in the first twenty listens start to become more noticeable.

Source

Yes, I’m not like anyone else it seems. It takes me a lot of plays to hear what I want to hear. Just call is a curse.

Karnivool are an Australian alternative band who are more on the heavy side. I could have used ‘Metal Weekend’ quite easily but am now dedicated to my ‘Focus on series’.

I’m not seeing anyone else writing content using this theme yet. Please feel free to use the #alternativeweekend tag and the ‘Focus on’ title. I would like to hear some songs from bands that I have not heard of before.

I will keep my eyes peeled for any more that have been written by others and dish some votes out if I see any good ones.

Karnivool – Simple Boy (Sound Awake – 2009)

What a grungy sound this is. I think of sandpaper when listening to this, the background sounds are so course. The first track on Sound Awake is a good one but needs a few listens.

These guys are not your regular chorus, verse, chorus, verse and if I can make any comparisons it would be to metal progressive monsters, Tool.

Karnivool – Themata (Themata – 2005)

The title track to their debut album must be good, it’s the title track, isn’t it? Good or not, the number of listens this took me was well into double figures before I started listening and hearing the sounds.

I have been listening again recently, but now I can hear it instead of a wave of sound going in one ear and out the other, I really like this song.

Karnivool – All I Know (Sound Awake – 2009)

This is the song that brought the band to my attention. Catchier than most of the rest with less metal, it does get going close to the end and gives the heavy listener some gratification.

I think this was a single as there is a decent video for it. The song still took me many plays to sink in, but if anything I have now overplayed it.

This is a good introduction to the sound of the band and probably the most accessible song I have heard by them.

Karnivool – New Day (Sound Awake – 2009)

If you are a fan of this band you might say, ‘Nothing from Asymmetry?’. The band have released THREE albums but much as I try the final album is just not hitting me.

The single from it’, Eidolon’ I have listened to umpteen times but it’s just not working.

‘New Day’ was a little like this but I have started hearing it just recently. This is a meaty song that ranges from acoustic to metal. If you are a normal person it will probably sink in quite fast.

Karnivool are a somewhat progressive alternative band with a decent amount of metal thrown in. Don’t be put off listening to them by my ramblings of inaccessibility. The band does have something and are worth a listen.

Other articles in the ‘Focus on’ series:

Alternative Weekend: Focus on 'Tears for Fears'
Alternative Weekend: Focus on 'The Cranberries'
Alternative Weekend: Focus on 'Kate Bush'
Alternative Weekend: Focus on 'The Smiths'
Alternative Weekend: Focus on 'Radiohead'
Alternative Weekend: Focus on 'Rush'

If you found this article so invigorating that you are now a positively googly-eyed, drooling lunatic with dripping saliva or even if you liked it just a bit, then please upvote, comment, resteem, engage me or all of these things.