Any catchy tune can get
stuck in your head but only great songs haunt. In covering the
songs which make up 2010's Big Four (see earlier post), we will encounter many tunes
which haunt. 'Wreckers', the opener of Dethonator's self-titled début
disc, is a prime example. Songs which haunt are songs which conjure
with sound. Separated from any lyrics which may join them in their
finished form, they bring to mind distinct images. Listeners visions
may differ - when I first heard a music-only version of what was to
become 'Wreckers', I titled it 'The Wailing Desert'.
The wailing is
rather of unfortunate souls lured to the rocks by the wreckers of the
title: devious devils who stand upon clifftops wielding lanterns,
luring ships to their doom. Never mind that this probably never happened, cannot be historically verified: the image is too brilliant to discard on such grounds. Lyrically, 'Wreckers' is fantasy in the broad sense; the sense in which Stevenson's 'Treasure
Island' is a fantasy, the way in which the pithy horror trips in 1950s
Tales From the Crypt comics are 'mere fantasy'.
Haunting songs needn't
have particular kinds of lyrics or even even lyrics at all. As such,
it naturally follows that a 'haunter', so to speak, could convey
profound truth or knit one a sweater of pure fantasy. 'Wreckers' does
the latter absolutely beautifully. Know your heavy metal architecture
as Dethonator do and it is possible to construct a haunter whose
sounds and words resonate together: a few simple chords and a crash
of percussion become waves on which the lyrics 'Haun-ting... the-e.. shore'
ride through your head; a run of notes feels like rain in your brain;
you can see that lantern swinging, its fell yellow glow lighting up
the craggy face of its bearer, his grin speaking of horrors visited and horrors to come.
Best you just listen to
'Wreckers' and learn for yourself what a haunter feels like. As was
mentioned, they don't have to have lyrics, but if they do, simple and
ballsy can works wonders. Behold!
On the sands
The bodies lie
Drowned
And stripped
And left to die
Shadows creep
On Bodmin Moor
Wreck
Is left on the shore
Monkeying with the
verse structure as I have done above was merely a way to get these
simple, effective words to work their magic out of context. The line
about Bodmin Moor is particularly perfect. It is so refreshing to
find a band who don't fear a cliche, who don't avoid the obvious
because it is obvious, who have the balls to decide what they think
will work and just do it. It's awesome when it also pays off. We
shall see many examples of this as we make our way, track by track,
through the Big Four of 2010.
[This is part 1 in an
ongoing series which will go through the Big Four of 2010,
considering one individual track in each post. We won't be following
the tracklistings of the albums in question (that would be tiresome)
but eventually all of the tracks concerned will have a post devoted to
them - yes, even the ones that aren't really all that]