The Most Profound and Terrifying Music, It Will Enter Your Soul
930539
When you listen to this, the music will change you. I'm serious. This was the first Beethoven symphony I ever listened to, and I will never forget how tall and how often the hair on the back of my neck stood up! This recording is many things. As various reviewers have pointed out, it is a historical treasure and a terrifying psychological and artistic metaphor for a war-torn Germany, with Furtwangler as the brilliant poet.

Though I am a stickler for sound quality, I poured gasoline all over my reservations and lit a match after hearing this for the first time. Furtwangler's Ninth sounds like the wrath of God and evokes not simply the wrongs of Nazi Germany, but the wrongs that humanity has committed against its own kind since the dawn of time. Now focusing on the music itself, I want to point out that Furtwangler, unlike Karajan, has a master's intuition for utilizing percussion effectively, the drums defeaning as they boom out the terrifying death knell that gives this interpretation its unique mood. Listen to Karajan and compare the little toy drums he puts 300 yards from the mike to this recording. The difference is like night and day.

More importantly, Furtwangler has a good grasp for tempo and never lets any one section of the orchestra overpower the others (again, contrast with the string-happpy Karajan). Of this much I'm certain: of the 6 versions of the Ninth I have heard, this far surpasses all of them in emotional impact. What more could you ask for?
3898563
This is an emotional, sensitive, spiritual album.  It tugs at your heartstrings, and gives you the sense of being absolutely alone sometimes, and surrounded by divine love at others.

Listen to it alone, or with someone else you trust not to interrupt.

Listen to it when you think, or reflect on things.

Let it take over your mind, and rush out all the pain you hold in.

Take in every detail, and be totally drowned by its gloom when you need that overwhelming push into deep thought.

Take care not to get trapped in it.  It can make gravity feel doubly strong, and it can give you a sense of being so near to the state of your ancestors long since passed, that you can't help but see pure black when you close your eyes.

And yet you can be assured that by the end, it will absolutely blow your mind, and give you that realization of just how powerful your soul can be under the influence of music.
3996984
The world is a mess. I guess it always has been. And that is one reason this music is so important. It is blessed spiritual tonic of the highest order. There is no problem I have ever had or depression I have felt that this incredible music couldn't heal. It eminates from the heart of the divine and is a celebration of the purest and simplest joys of life and for that reason it's accessible to anyone willing to open to it. Brian is as much a messenger as he is a musician and the boys are his angelic choir. Argue intellectually all you want but this music goes way beyond that to the very spirit and joy of life itself. Remember your happiest moments of childhood. This music will take you there again. What an incredible gift to a world gone mad.
3403997
This CD has the most incredible rendition of A Winter's Night that I've ever heard.  And you know those moments in your life when music can bring something back to you, so close, so intense-- that you can breathe it, feel it, live it all again?  What a gift that is. I swear this music gives parts of my life back to me all over again and it is truly bittersweet.  This is for heartache, for beauty, and for life-- and for whoever you will always love, deeply and completely, without thought, sense or reservation. Enjoy.
520445
If you are reading this, then you are in big, big trouble.  It may mean that you have discovered M Ward and are tracing him back to his roots, to his beginnings.  It further implies that you may have already heard something he did and are curious about this M Ward fellow.  Either way, brace yourself because you are in for a rare musical treat.  What awaits you is genius, pure unfettered genius, and you are going to find it here at the beginning (in its incipient stages) or growing stronger with "End of Amnesia" or bursting forth with "The transfiguration of Vincent"  or simply exploding everywhere all over the place in "Transistor Radio".  Whatever direction you are travelling on the Ward Highway, get ready to be in a big musical wreck.  Nobody does anything near to music what this man does.  There ought to be a law against him for making so much beauty so fast and so soon (he is only 31 and just put out his fourth CD) but who's going to vote for it?  Not me, that's for sure, and pretty soon, not you either.  Listen and see. After hearing this one, you have the best collection of the four waiting for you next at #2 Ward Highway. The ride on this road only gets better and better as it heads for the musical hall of fame.  This man is making once in a lifetime music and you are standing at the spot from which it all began. You need to drink the Kool-Aid from the wellspring immediately and when you do you'll understand what all the fuss is about.  The Ward highway is an incredibly beautiful and remote yet immediately present place laced with sounds and sights often imagined but rarely encountered.
1381825
The Cure really began to develop their sound, albeit basically by accident, on Seventeen Seconds and Faith.  Seventeen Seconds reveals a newly discovered discontentment about people and relationships.  Faith goes a little deeper, falling into grief and an unsettling despair.  Pornography differs from both as it flat out hits bottom like a dead cat hitting a basement floor.

This album captures the emptiness and futility of a very serious depression.  Whereas other albums may tell a story of love gone wrong, misplaced trust or general frustration, this one is a map of the interior mind and soul which often reveals the all consuming black wall of nothingness.  The sound is claustrophobic and bleak yet it never takes refuge in acceptance, like a wilting flower.  As dark as it gets it never gives in, never stops asking, "Is it always like this?"

It is not a complex album by any means, much of the sound bordering on tribal and repetitive and it just works perfectly.  While it's heavy, it won't hold you down as much as it offers to hold your hand.  The guitar is haunting over the basic bass lines and drum beats.  And Robert's voice sounds like it's coming from the back of the mausoleum.  Simply beautiful.

If you have never endured a crippling depression, I doubt this record will do a thing for you.  Stick to whatever makes you happy.  But if you want a reflection of what depression sounds like, this is as good as it gets.  Angry, lonely and brilliant.
3553090
Amon tobin is the undisputed daddy of the abstract-soul-jazz 'n bass. To be quite frank he's tear jerking. The amount of orgazmic, and exquisite hallucinogenicly aesthtical brain anurisms i'e had over tracks 3 & 5, are atleast threefold. I warn you if your anything like me then you'd better where a dress and some preety rugged headgear otherwiseyour in serious danger of  LOSING YOUR MIND!  iF I MET HIM I'D KIDNAPP HIM AND TAKE HIM BACK TO MY BEDREEM WHERE I WOULD FORCE HIM WITH ARMED WEOPONS TO REDEATIDLY PLAY HIS TUNES TO ME WITH HIS MOUTH FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE, ONLY THEN COULD I TRUELY EAT THE ELIXER OF MY HUMANITY WITHOUT DAMAGING THE PINEAL GLAND, YOU UNDERSTAND OF COURSE THAT WHAT I REALLY MEAN IS THAT I LIKE HIM TO A POINT OF NEAR LOVE FOR HIS EXQUISTE MATHMATICAL GENIOUS AND GENERRAL BRAZILIIAN SOULFULNESS. hE'S REFORMED MY PERSEPTION OF MUSIC LIFE AND ME MYSELF AND REDUCED MY PROBLEMS TO NOTHING. i AM GREATFUL THAT HE EXSISTS, AND FOR THAT I THANK ALL HUMANITY INCLUDING MYSELF FOR LISTENING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. iF YOU DON'T LOVE THE FIRST FIVE TUNES WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND SOUL THEN YOU ARE SOMBODY THAT I WOULD KILL WITHOUT THINKING ONCE, WATCHOUT I'M EVREYWHEREE. lISTEN TO THE MUSICAL FLOW OF PURE PASSION LOVE REASON AGGRESSION INSANITY DESPAIR HELPLESSNESS TEARJERKING DOWN RIGHT GENIOUS AND PROBABLY A PROPHET TO ENLIGHEN US TO HIS INNER EXPERIENCE OF THE ONE LIKE THE INDIVISABLE RELATION, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN I'M TALKING OF GOD THE SPIRIT THE SOUL AND THE MENTEL, PRECEEDING THE PYHSICAL, CREATOR OF THE PHYSICAL HOUSER OF THE PHYSICAL AND CONTAINED WITHIN THE PHYSICAL, THE REAL REALITY THE TRUE WORLD, THE WORLD OF FORMS, HEAVEN, THE STUFF MADE WITH THE VERY THOUGHTS OF OUR MINDS, ENTANGLED VIBRATIONS OF ENERGY, TWISTING AND TWIRLING, INTERTWINING AND, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME CONCEPTUALIZING THE VERY RALITY WE LIVE IN. a BIG JOB FOR SUCH A VASTNESS AS HIS WORSHIP IS. hE CAN ONLY BE DESCRIBED BY WHAT HE IS NOT, HE IS NOTHING AND EVERYTHING INVERSING  ANDIMPLODING , MIRRORED BY THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE CONDEMMED FOR ALL TIME TO EXPLODE AND  AND RE-IMPLODE IN AN PROCESS AS ENDLESS AS TIME, FORWARD PAST BACKWARD FUTURE, BACKWARD PAST FORWARD FUTURE, A CIRCLE OF DIVING COMPEXITY IN IT'S SIMPICITY. kNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
3772412
How good is this CD? It's so good that I'm almost afraid to write about it because my puny effort won't do it justice!
 ... Buddy (and his wife Julie) create these stunning songs, then some "big hat, large belt buckle" corporate country "performer" does an inferior cover version and makes millions. Go figure. Just skip that lame stuff on the radio and see if you can handle the uncut hit.
The sheer raw power on this CD is a force that transcends nature.  Buddy (and Julie) are willing to lay it all on the line at a level so intense that it's scary. This is music for grown ups. "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger" and "Somewhere Trouble Don't Go" are so raw and charged with emotional power that sappy teenagers will never get it.
Admittedly, not everyone will dig this. I played a little bit of this for a friend and he was really shook up. "So much pain." Yeah, but that's what puts the "blue" in bluegrass. Because somehow, despite all of the wrenching anguish, there is an almost mystical joy here, a sense of triumph. If you look at the very best of authentic "roots" music from around the world- Irish, Tejano, Bluegrass, Blues or Jazz- you'll hear that cry from the soul. Imagine the Carter family in a cutting edge, eclectic and electric setting.
It's all here. Can you handle it?
617788
Two Steps From Hell is the most dynamic music of it's kind I have ever heard.
Archangel has so much to give you get something new every time you listen.
The orchestral arrangements, the full-throttle creativity to create such music
like Archangel is a testament to the genius of this group's creators. Very
moving, intensely personal, arranged in such a way you feel it was written
for you given what it says to you when you listen so carefully to the music.
Archangel is what you might think Archangels would sound like if they wrote
their own music. Inspiring, thoughtful, passionate in every second of what
has been written. So much thought and professionalism put into Archangel
and all the rest of what Two Steps From Hell creates.
2161811
This album, and the surprisingly large number of singles it spawned, has grown in me in an alarming way in the intervening 10+ years since I first heard it:  It turns out it was a time capsule ... FROM THE FUTURE.

The insane zebra-stripe structure, the hallucinatory more-industrial-than-industrial assault of the instrumentation ... is like falling down Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole into a jagged, urban, chemical cauldron version of Wonderland.  Reality is chopped into glass fragments and tossed like a salad, then fed into your brain through your ears.

I agree with the other reviewer:  You don't do anything else while you listen to this.  It's like a feature film from a master director:  It demands, but rewards, your full attention.

Then pick your eyeballs out of the ceiling, and go get all the singles, if you can find them!
6296
Helmer Alexandersson's little-known SYMPHONY NO. 2 is nothing less than music to obsess over repeatedly.  While all four movements are sure to grab you upon first hearing, the turbulent Fourth Movement -- virile...darkly Romantic...savagely sturm-und-drangish -- will leave you positively breathless.

Take my word for it -- if you're an unabashed worshipper of Romantic music, you'll thank whatever fate it was that led you to this stunningly magnificent symphony.

PS:  After hearing the work, you'll doubtless find yourself on a personal mission to share it with everyone and anyone worthy of appreciating it.
973104
I have listened to lots of "spook music" over time, but none seem to capture the essence of spook.  None, that is, until NOW.  This CD takes the listener inside the Horror.  Monsters and ghouls, vampires and ghosts all flash around me in a Dance of Devils.  When I hear the CD, Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi come back from their tombs to scare me again.  For me, and MANY others, Phantom of The Organ/Vampyre of The Harpsichord IS Spook Music.
2718101
The whole album is a masterpiece; it flows so naturally and so beautifully like a musical narrative. It is so powerful that it creates mental landscapes in my mind which are so visual that they are almost tangible.  The melody is so charming yet so agonizingly painful; and this dichotomy is  a very true reflection of Egon Schiele and his art works. I would say that  the author of the music had a very accurate and piercing insight into the  subject matter and delivered an amazing musical interpretation on it.  Perhaps this is a little far fetched, but to me, this music is as  soul-searching and sensual as a Herman Hesse novel and, also a little bit  like that animation AeonFlux, just in terms of how much it forces you to  focus on one of your senses. AeonFlux forces you to open your eyes, but  Music for Egon Schile forces you to open your ears. And strangely, it also  feels as if this very melodious music is giving me a taste and feel of  "silence" which is quite paradoxical. The quality of performance  and recording are both impeccable. There is not one bit I would change  about this CD; it is perfect, it is absolute, it is true to itself. If you  work alone at night quite often, this music will keep you awake far better  than most techno's such as Prodigy or Chemical Brothers. It is just that  intense and potent. Personally this music helps me to focus on my  innerself. It takes me into that very private, personal and intimate space  inside. It is poetic, lyrical, cerebral and sensual. It is a work of a true  genius.
3440639
This music is not for the faint of heart.  Be prepared to be carried away to a different place and time.  Best to listen when the heart yearns for the divine or when the mind is clouded and confused.  Spiritui Sancto is readily found to be balm for both experiences.
4940599
Neurosis transcends genres and labels.  You don't listen to Neurosis - you EXPERIENCE Neurosis... there is a difference.  Lots of people say that this band plays music that could be perceived as the soundtrack to the apocalypse, and although I don't disagree with that, I feel that more must be said.  With "Times Of Grace" the band mutated their wall of sound into a vehicle to juxtapose sonically "yin and yang" qualities - they expressed how sheer, violent surges can be simply beautiful and how melody and subdued orchestrations can be tense, ominous, foreboding... and downright frightening.  "...Grace" does continue their trademark droning repetition in areas, but that's their way of tapping into your unconscious mind.  What some call monotonous, we Neurosis fans call mesmerising.  "...Grace" hypnotises you into a subliminal trance that allows you to (re)discover the lost primitive archetypes that bind human nature to Mother Earth.  If you search deep into the world of Neurosis, you'll find that this CD is another voyage toward their destination based on mental, physical, aural, visual, historical, and spatial harmony.  Don't listen - EXPERIENCE.
2264265
From the very first note that engulfs you from this cd you are wisked away on a magical journey to your inner self. It needs to be played at a good volume to get the full effects of the stunning variance in the range of pitch it throws at you. An ideal tape to meditate with it really opens you up where you need it most. This has got to be the best piece of music I have ever listened to. Thank you to the author for writing or possibly channelling such a wonderful piece.
3634951
Prepare for a crotch grabbing awsome experience. The tremellos and solos are inhuman. This CD will rock your face off.