Longing for fields...
I discovered Hammers Of Misfortune by chance upon hearing two songs from their first full-length, The Bastard: You Should Have Slain Me and An Oath Sworn in Hell. These two songs caught my ear tight enough to have me start chase their releases. With each release I found they got better. My favourite release by them is The Locust Years, which is an album I never tire of listening to. It's followed by the double album of Fields/Church of Broken Glass (pretty tied with The August Engine).
Fields/Church of Broken Glass had, in addition to new vocalists, a more pronounced 70s hard rock/prog edge, with lush and wonderful keyboards a-la Deep Purple. But the real winner for me here was the fantastic trilogy of the title song Fields. Gripping lyrics, beautiful and catchy melodies and an atmosphere that shifts from melancholy and nostalgia to intensity of imminent danger and foreboding signs.
This trilogy alone is worth the price of the album. I listened to it over and over again when I received it. At some point I thought I should stop as to not overdose on it and have its effect wear-off. That didn't happen and to this day whenever I hear those opening keyboards notes of Agriculture, I'm hooked.
I listened to this a lot while driving at night in full volume; it's an exhilarating experience. Motorcade in particular has a soaring and propulsive melody that makes it a perfect song to drive off a cliff with...
The title song with Jesse Quattro's beautiful vocals and the accompanying piano is as sad as it is gorgeous. I can't help but sing with her and be moved each time.
Read this well-written and thought-out review of this double album here. It has a nice and brief discussion about the themes of the albums.
The three songs are a continuous piece and since I couldn't find any video that has them together, I've posted the three of them individually. And so it won't have the same impact as hearing it as a whole piece.
Fields Trilogy: a. Agriculture
Hands upon harrows
Heels in the weeds
Starving and harvesting
Down centuries
Pheasants in fields to be hunted and plucked
Such is their ration of sixpenny luck
Multinous Мужикѕ
Who mutter in tongues
They frighten the horses
Of fortunate sons
Absent the rustics, what have they become?
Only on Sunday their tears weakly run
More or less murder?
One simple order
It's just history's whisper
A secret to leave in the field
Hands upon harrows and heels in the weeds
Treason and guillotines, gallows and thieves
Angular hayseeds once furrowed this land
Picturesque reapers with skeletal hands
Proles are more portly now, mouths open wide
Tipping the scales we so kindly provide
Skeletal hands were our strata's delight
But oh so offensive on opening night
Fields Trilogy: b. Fields
Sing us a song, a song called how did it all go wrong
Sing even though we haven't spoken for oh so long
Sing for tongues are encumbered by their own eyes
And weary of leering, twisting and winding from side to side
Pray give us fields with bountiful yields for the coming frost
Teach us to toil, the lore of the soil that we have lost
Spare us alas for our seasons have sown only great expectations and rust
Only in labor and sun-beaten backs can we place our trust
Show us the field and weapons to wield for the coming war
Let us redress celestial sentence we've waited for
Trenches or furrows, soldier or harvester, sword or ploughshare
A field and a summer, one or another, we're buried there
Spin us a yarn of common place charm oh so far away
Rustic emotion, artless devotion, naiveté
Give us a game, the rules and the fools who refuse to play
Smash our defenses with endless editions of yesterday
Fields Trilogy: c. Motorcade
See through the window, the city goes by
Streets full of suckers with dimes in their eyes
Heads full of sediment, buzzing with flies
Helplessly dreading the next big surprise
Escorting friendlies, a walk in the park
Unlock the cages as soon as it's dark
Motorcade motorcade easy to mark
Send in the snipers to swim with the sharks
Breadline is burning, the headcount's a joke
Soon they'll be feasting on mirrors and smoke
Motorcade motorcade horses to show
Fish in a barrel and ducks in a row
Pheasants in Fields to be hunted and plucked
Such is their ration of sixpenny luck
The party's decorum is crucial tonight
Scatter the parasites, vermin and blight
Motorcade motorcade easy to mark
Send in the snipers to swim with the sharks
Motorcade motorcade horses to show
Fish in a barrel and ducks in a row
Motorcade motorcade easy to mark
Send in the snipers to swim with the sharks
No comments:
Post a Comment
Any comments?