Welcome to the pond

The last few days I've been entertaining myself by watching "Return of the King" and listening to my new CDs. ROTK is, of course, amazing. The extended cut is definitely an improvement on the original film. The new scenes are very good and the smaller additions blend seamlessly with the rest of the movie. The special features are very good so far too.

The Gillian Welch album (Time - The Revelator) is very awesome. It was apparently recorded in a little studio in Nashville with just Gillian, David, and two guitars (and a banjo on one track). The result is an intimate album that sounds an awful lot like Gillian and David's live work. The music is so simple and the lyrics are very poetic and paint powerful pictures in your mind. The last song on the album, "I Dream A Highway," is a 14 and a half minute epic and it's amazing if you give it time. I've read some criticism about the song, and it's been called pretentious and just plain too long. I do admit it's quite a long song to sit through, but when I pay attention to the lyrics the time flies right by. It's a gorgeous song and the lyrics are almost like poetry. Other favorite songs of mine on the album are "Red Clay Halo" sung from the perspective of a poor country boy who wonders if he'll arrive in heaven covered in the dirt of the land; "April the 14th" and "Ruination Day" are two parts to a song but placed in different spots on the album. The lyrics are very colorful with tales of drifters in a van, trash on the streets and other such images. "April" is a slower, reflective song and "Ruination Day" is a more bluesy, funky ditty.

Neil and Tim Finn's album "Everyone Is Here" is a bright collection of powerful rock and pop songs about family, love and life. The more you listen to the songs, the more they work their way into your mind and leave you humming the chorus. Pianos and banjos are added to the electric and acoustic guitars to give things a touch of beauty and bring out the pop side of the music. Neil and Tim both sing very well, but they sing better in harmony than solo. The lyrics are often interesting and powerful in their simplicity. Sometimes meanings are a bit hard to understand, but overall the message is easy for them to get across.

Both albums are excellent, and they made great gifts for me. Soon I'll buy Alison Krauss and Union Station's new one, and I'm prepared to be blown away.

That's all that's going on around here. I'll try to think of other things to blog on later, and perhaps I'll even get a poem written.