Published on Mar 26, 2002
Boy, there are just some times when you wonder what in the hell
people were thinking.
I can just hear the idea guys on this one. “Hey, let’s take some
of the most soporific air-pudding music around and make it even
MORE soporific! We’ll have people falling into comas as they
listen! What a great freakin’ idea!”
To be fair, Taliesin Orchestra is occasionally interesting. (I
have another of their discs around the Office O’ Doom somewhere,
and they do a damned fine cover of Peter Gabriel’s “Secret World”.)
For those who don’t know, they’re just what they sound like; a
studio symphony orchestra who does covers of popular music. Kind of
Muzak™ for the more musically inclined, but occasionally
pleasant. In the case of
Thread Of Time, though, it’s two mediocre things that
synergize into something unspeakable.
I admit it; I’m not a huge Enya fan. About the only time I dig
out my couple of Enya CDs is as pre-ritual music in my Wiccan
religious practice, and even then I’m likely to prefer my
meditative and spiritual state of mind be induced by old Alan
Parsons CDs or something. Enya is just too damn ethereal for me; I
prefer my music either have grit or grandeur, and Enya rarely
achieves either.
Now, take this aural Prozac and let a studio orchestra at it. It
doubles the snore factor, cloaks it in even more homogenized
prettiness, and slips it into your drink like a horny frat guy with
the same tendency towards unconsciousness. I won’t say that I
immediately dozed off, but I will say that I’ve heard more exciting
music shopping at K-Mart. I’ve been more excited and uplifted by
Barbra Streisand, and I’ll chew off my own leg rather than be
forced to listen to the Human Nose. This is, in a word, boring.
Boring, boring, boring. It’s not even badly done, really, though
the production is flat at best, muddy at worst, but it commits the
cardinal musical sin; it’s dull.
There’s only so many ways I can say this, so let me sum up and
move on to something with a pulse:
Thread Of Time bad.
Thread Of Time dull as an Al Gore campaign rally. Avoid
Thread Of Time unless you have chronic insomnia. Excuse me,
I need to go turn this off and put on some SR-71 or something.