Then came Insomniac Doze and I pretty much lost most of my interest in this band.
I know a lot of you consider Insomniac Doze to be a good record. Maybe even a near-perfect record. Maybe some sorry people even think it's the best album ever done by Envy. Now don't get me wrong; I don't consider Insomnia Doze to be a bad record, not at all. It's just that... I find it boring. They scrapped the hardcore and screamo part almost entirely and became just another post rock band with occasional screamed vocals. There's just something in Isomniac Doze that turns me off, and I quickly got bored of trying to "get into it". I gave a few listens to Abyssal ep, but I felt the same way about it; Not really my piece of cake.
After that came the Envy/Jesu split and Envy/Thursday split which were a lot better in my book. Still a far cry from the awesomeness All The Footprints and A Dead Sinking Story, and in some parts, the songs on those said splits were even overshadowed by the songs on Jesu and Thursday sides respectively.
So naturally, I didn't have too high hopes for Envy's new long play, Recitation. A few days ago, I finally decided to give it a listen. It didn't start very well; I kinda felt like the record only begun at about five minutes of the second track, with the first track consisting mostly of ambient sounds and spoken word vocals which is something I used to love but have become a bit of a cliche for me, nowadays.
But... I was wrong. To my surprise, after listening to the whole record, I was actually thrilled to find out I liked it. A much. Recitation sounds like the Envy I used to love; This is some fucking epic real emotional hardcore instead of just feedback guitars and other post rock cliches. Of course, there's that side still present; However, it's in balance with faster, more rock oriented songs like "Dreams Coming To An End".
Recitation is my favorite album of the moment and has restored my love in Envy; Baby, I forgive you for the mistakes you made. We all make mistakes sometimes. Maybe I'll even give Insomniac Doze and Abyssal another chance. P.S. Please play in Finland some day.
So... Anyway. Here's the reason to the somewhat cryptic title of this post:
I was listening to the song "Rain Clouds Running in a Holy Night", the third track of Recitation. It sounded oddly familiar. There was some sort of... Christmas-y feel on it. Then it struck me; Part of it is directly lifted from a christmas carol called "Silent Night, Holy Night". I know this shit, I used to have to sing this stuff in school and even at home when I was a kid. I sang like a goddamn angel back then, motherfuckers.
Compare this (from about 02:58, the lead guitar ->)...
...With this:
Holy shit, Envy made a fucking christmas song?!
It's pretty cool actually. And other songs have somewhat christmas/winter like feeling on them too. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other parts lifted straight from old christmas carols as well. I guess western christmas traditions are somewhat exotic to Japanese people.
Anyway, I can imagine myself visiting my parents during the holidays and listening to this song in a candle light, drinking glögi (a.k.a. "mulled wine") while cold northern wind blows over the snow fields outside the window. Or some shit like that.
Oh, and by the way, "Recitation" by Envy is in Spotify:
Envy – Recitation
