Imagine that you are stranded on a deserted island.
On it, there is this lounge with a great stereo, a comfortable couch, all placed in the shade.
With trembling hands you try the stereo, and as in a miracle - it actually works!
The only catch is - all you can find is a box with three records in it.
You have no way of getting more, and these three records will be you company until you die of starvation in a few weeks time. As a grant from higher/lower powers, you get to choose the three records.
Wich.
Records.
Do.
You.
Choose?
That eternal "desert island"-question is part of todays ramblings.
The other part is the fact that I would answer that question completely different depending on the time in my life - simply because I have a knack for falling completely and totally in love with new great records. Often, a bit more so than what is probably healthy.
This, I belive, is something I share with others - and I think that both Stones (perhaps especially him, maybe that is why his pile of records that he has bought and just do not seem to get around to just keeps growing?) and Thetania has a bit of that personality as well.
In the first Rebel Angel Rambling, I revealed that my top 5 favourite albums of all time are:
BLACK SABBATH "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
DIO "The Last In Line"
QUEENSRYCHE "Operation: Mindcrime"
PARADISE LOST "Draconian Times"
OPETH "Ghost Reveries"
...and they dominate my "Most Played" on iTunes - but, nevertheless, I would probably just grab one of them if I got the question from the beginning of this post.
Instead, I would add some of my own favourites at the moment.
This year, 2013, is turning out to be a solid music year.
I fell completely and a bit surprisingly in love with SOILWORK "The Living Infinite" earlier this year (did not think they would be able to pull it off, making a double album that has no dead moments at all), as well as a bit less surprisingly with the third and excellent KONGH-album "Sole Creation".
The third album that obsessed me - and the one that is currently taking all the airtime from me - is this one:
Vancouverbased ANCIIENTS plays music that rings familiar if you like acts like BARONESS, MASTODON, OPETH and KYLESA - but it is very much an album that stands on it's own and cannot be called a copy. It has that special magic touch that makes you want to listen again and again...and again. In fact, I've missed a few deadlines when it comes to reviews of other albums just beacause I could not face listening to anything else than "Heart Of Oak" from ANCIIENTS....but don't tell anyone.
After all, as Homer Simpson said: "Remember son, it's only cheating if you get caught", and as those deadlines were not written in blood I think it is fine. Some records just had to wait a week or two to get their albumreview published.
Looking back over the years, it is quite easy to pinpoint a specific album to a specific point of time in my life, especially when something important or memorable happened.
On the Metalblog, the spring has had a specific series of article that takes a deeper look into that (you'll find it
here, it's called "Besatt" (meaning "Possessed") and it is all in Swedish), and as I am currently writing the fall season of that series - a new post will be published every other Sunday - I cannot help wondering if I will ascosiate ANCIIENTS with this late summer, and perhaps the Rebel Angel Ramblings.
Quite possible.
Especially as I am at a happy place in my life right now.
Everything...flows.
That makes it especially weird, as I once discovered MASTODON "Leviathan", an album that reminds me very much of ANCIIENTS "Heart Of Oak", at a very dark time in my life.
The record was released more or less at the same time as I went through a quite dirty divorce, and as it turned out it became a big comfort and energy booster when I needed it the most.
The heavy and catchy riffing, the energy and drive in the music and the out-of-this-world-drumming will forever fill me with thoughts and feelings of hope,slightly tainted with a small bit of sorrow and dark memories.
As I could not find any good video from ANCIIENTS, I thought that it would be fitting to play MASTODON, once a definite record that would have been one of the three in my box.
The band is Troy Sanders (bass and vocals), Brett Hinds (guitar and vocals), Bill Keliher (guitar) and Brann Dailor (drums), and I'd like to say that this record was their big brake and transformed them from a promising band to superstars. They went on to create concept albums like "Blood Mountain", "Crack The Skye" with windling stories built into them, as well as the latest and more straight forward "The Hunter".
It has become one of my most-played bands, it it will be interesting to see if ANCIIENTS can walk that very same road.
So - my three records right now, on that deserted island:
ANCIIENTS "Heart Of Oak"
BLACK SABBATH "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
SOILWORK "The Living Infinite".
Tomorrow, it may very well be something completely different.
Wich ones are your three albums for the island?
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