When I’ve done this in the past I really enjoyed it, but the thing was that when I got down to the last few slots, I found it somewhat difficult to choose songs; down near the 5/6/7 mark its songs that maybe I really really like but for most of the bands (at least any that I’d spend significant time reviewing) there are many songs that fall under this category, I guess it’s what happens when your obsessed with music haha.
But for Eighteen Visions it’s not been difficult at all, in fact it’s been the opposite where I found myself trying to fit in my favourite tracks and it just wasn’t enough. Initially I figured maybe making it 10 of the best or something, but then I felt that would end up in being a massive wall of text and no one would read it, plus it took any real fun away *plus I still found it hard to narrow down*. Then I thought I could make it more fun, I could take a look and review some tracks that are maybe lesser known, still tracks that I love and consider favourites, but songs that maybe aren’t as known (for example pre-Trustkill releases, covers and b-sides).
I’ve tried to include something from every release and every era of the band to try and show the obvious diversity of the band but also the evolution and maturity that the band went through and how they became what they did.
Meh, enough with the reading, time to get listening.....and reading I suppose
“She’s A Movie Produced Masterpiece"
So, I’m starting off with a track that everyone can relate to, well every guy at least. Before I get to the actual song, those lyrics; this song effectively acts as love-letter to woman everywhere, but most importantly that one girl that every guy is crazy about and cannot stop thinking about -that “blonde bombshell, blue eyed beauty”.
On to the track, James’ lyrics are amazing, what strikes me about the whole of the ‘Until The Ink Runs Out’ album is that it’s all about beauty, sex and girls in general (their phrase at the time being that they were the best at “sex, hair and rock n’ roll!”). Like I said, everyone can relate to the lyrics, they can understand them and can picture that girl in their mind, plus after all isn’t the dream of every guy to be with that one girl they dream of?
Oh, the song also starts off with a quick quote from Back To The Future, which I absolutely LOVE!! I’ve talked about adding in sounds outside of instruments during a song (a lot on the Nine Inch Nails article) but if there’s one thing I love more is adding in movie quotes; if done right it can literally make a song for me.
I can’t really remember the first time I listened to this, I think this was one of the tracks that I got into when I first started looking into 18V, but I suppose I never really ‘felt’ it until I took a proper serious look into the bands entire back catalogue and took an interest in the whole fashioncore thing.
“There Is Always”/”Notes Of My Reflection”
First off these are two different songs, but appear on the same album and both carry out the same function to the album. They are used as preludes/outro’s to different songs as well as offering the listener somewhat of a breather to what is a pretty damn heavy album (‘Vanity’).
“There Is Always” first off is seriously one of my favourite songs ever by any band, frankly behind “Vanity” and maybe “Motionless In White” I’d say this could well be my favourite song ever. In a word, it’s beautiful. A short, 117 second instrumental rendition of the theme for 1964 film The Manchurian Candidate, this song just does something to me, I don’t know what but it seriously grabs me somewhere inside my soul and pulls away at the strings. There have been many times where the song has made me emotional, legit emotional. It’s got this sombre feel to it, I know I say this about pretty much every instrumental that I review, but it does have this sinister side to it though this one doesn’t seem too sinister and kind of goes down the path of more sad and sombre tones.
As for “Notes Of My Reflection” this isn’t as impactful, at least for me, I mean it’s a good way to connect two songs and keeps the feel of the entire album going through-out but for me it doesn’t have the same emotional connection. The song keeps this almost rap-like beat through it, which was something that really scared me off and made my hesitant to even listening to it, but once I listened to the album all through I realised its purpose and instantly ‘got it’ then.
These two tracks seriously make the entire album a whole package; it’s not a collection of just a few good songs and a bunch of filler but rather a proper album where all the songs make sense and have their place, something that I think has always kinda been a problem in music.
“All We’ve Got”
Now this I think was the last official Eighteen Visions song ever released, being released in 2007 on the Trustkill Takeover compilation. Frankly I think it’s one of the best songs they recorded during their Glamcore phase; it has an amazing pop-hook that leads greatly into what could be one of the catchiest choruses ever!!
James Hart’s vocals may have never been clearer either; sonically I guess it’s kind of like a cross between the slow emotional “Tonightless” with the faster paced, hard rawking “Victim”; it’s got the whole 80’s ballad thing down to a T. Honestly I would have put this on the self-titled 2006 album over a number of the songs that actually did make the cut (not saying that the album is bad or that any of the songs are bad per-say, just that “All We’ve Got” is simply a great example of the band in their new element).
It’s not the easiest song to find, the comp came out 6 years ago and even then it’s not like Trustkill was the biggest record company going but I would say that the look is worth it and it could be one of the best b-sides I’ve ever heard. Nope, I’m not just saying that and I’m not being biased, I seriously feel that the entire sessions for their 2006 album resulted in the most rounded off album and some of the best music to be produced ever.
“Dead Rose”
An example of Eighteen’s early deathcore phase (where they pretty much invented the damn thing), this track is an amazingly angry take on love, and how fickle it is and how so many people take advantage of another person that they are supposedly “in love with”. Something that I love about Eighteen is how I can actually relate to their lyrics, I had never listened to a band that had me caring and feeling what was being said. (I had tried so hard with Rise Against, trying to understand and frankly just care about the whole political side of things and to be honest I couldn't, I loved the music of the band, still do but the lyrics were always something that meant very little to me with them.) The fickle and almost superficial side of “love” is something that truly irritates me and is something I’d say I see way too much, but this is getting too personal I think. The song is great; it’s got that quality that so many of the early Eighteen songs had which is unpredictability and a rapid change of pace and sound through-out the entire track. Plus this being from their first album, ‘Yesterday Is Time Killed’, James was still a screaming machine whose throat literally seems to be able to take any form of punishment and by the sounds of some of their earlier tracks, it could.
As far as I can remember this was a song that I just instantly liked, but once I got into the band more and really started to listen and get the lyrics, it just became so much more to me, not to mention my own views and feelings changing around this time too.
“I Let Go”
I’m pretty sure this is THE Eighteen Visions song that no matter who you let listen to it, fan or not, new fan or old fan, no matter the listeners music taste they are gonna love this song!!
It has everything; it’s got the gritty, heavy chugging guitar and bass in the background of a pretty mellow(er) sounding main guitar tune that skips along. The hooks are insanely hooky; they grab you from the very start and don’t let you go till the very end. James sings as opposed to shouting, yet there’s still somehow a heaviness and coarseness to his voice that makes the song appeal to fans of the scream. All in all this is a song that everyone will love and will just get immediately.
This was actually one of the first Eighteen songs I had ever heard, I know for sure that it was their first video that I had seen, but I have this clear vision of sitting drawing out wrestlers (it was 2006 and I was 14, leave me alone!!) and I remember watching the music channel The Hits and this video came on where these cool, slick looking guys come bursting through the doors to some mansion and proceed to tear this “End Of The World” party apart. I do remember going online like the next day and hunting Limewire (for real, those days haha) for anything Eighteen Visions, so I suppose this might be classed as the first time I looked into 18V then.
“Sacrilegious Murder”
Taken from their first release, ‘Lifeless’ – EP, “Sacrilegious Murder” is a damn scary track if you’re not used to this sort of music; lyric-wise it seems to tell the story of Christ and his death, but honestly I’m just taking a stab at it whilst reading the lyrics myself. During the early releases Eighteen were your ordinary hardcore band that screamed about death and murder, it wasn’t until ‘No Time For Love’ and the addition of the fashioncore style that I feel James started writing proper feeling songs. Now I’m in no way saying that ‘Lifeless’ is bad, but it’s one brutal ass record, pretty much helping invent the whole genre of deathcore from what I understand; this isn’t anything like “All We’ve Got”, hell it’s even a far cry from “Vanity” and others from that record, this is some intense ear-bleeding stuff.
Onto the song though and honestly I’m not too sure what to say, I mean it’s probably my favourite from this EP, it has this great chugging sound that’s continuous and James’ vocals are heavy and gritty but fit the song and this sound down perfectly. The track also starts off with a short sample from the film Se7en, so again I instantly liked it haha, but it’s just the screams of a man and damn it to hell it makes so much sense in this song and again this entire album.
I will be honest, this was the last album of theirs that I got into, and even now I need to be in the right mood to listen to it otherwise it just hits me way too hard. Though when you listen to something like this and then compare it with a song off of ‘Eighteen Visions’, then you can totally appreciate just how much this band had actually evolved in the 10 years they were together.
“Who The Fuck Killed John Lennon?”
For the last of the seven I went with one of my absolute favourite songs ever; taken from the same album as “She’s A Movie Produced Masterpiece” this track just oozes this cool swagger, slick motherfucker kind of vibe the band was starting to embrace at the time (*fashioncore* *fashioncore* *fashioncore*!!). Obviously lyrically it talks about the death of John Lennon and how it was a travesty and what the world ended up potentially losing out on.
“Who Killed…” is such a stand-out track from ‘Until The Ink…’, hell that entire album just has this aura and feeling of change about it but this song is just something else, it showcases the newly recruited Keith Barney’s hardcore chops (already well-known at this point) in his thrashy guitar work yet he still seems to bring this sense of tune and melody to a song and makes it more of a song and less of scream-fest. Honestly I feel it was adding in Keith that legitimized Eighteen, and his work in the band really helped make them so much more than I think they maybe ever would have been without him. The slow breakdowns, the fast choruses, heck even some vocals from James that are understandable without the aid of the lyric book; this was for sure a song that pushed Eighteen into the fans eyes and widened their audience.
Annnnnnd the ending includes another signature that the band used a lot from their early days, including movie samples, only this one was the full near 2 minute theme music from the original Shining teaser trailer (the one where the elevator doors spew the blood, they actually labelled the song “Elevator Music” *shinfo*). Though this was used for the vinyl pressing of the album as a way to silence the Side A off and bring it to an end, it remained on the mp3 and CD versions of the album attached to “Who Killed…” so I guess it counts, right?
Yep, that’s it over and done with now, so much damn writing but I did say I was gonna take this Eighteen Visions week way too serious haha. Really enjoyed doing this, even if it was a little too hard to review some of the lesser known tracks, but its 18V so all was good!!
I think that I atleast was able to show that this band of “rock and roll kids who played metal music in a hardcore band” really did cover a whole lot of ground in their decade-long career and pretty much ventured into every nook and cranny of rock music.
Hopefully any fans of the band enjoyed this list/review thingy but if you have a different list, let me know, don’t fret in posting it up.
Post in the comments, post your own list or head on over to the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/theghostchant).
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