Composer Reacts to Amenra - Boden - Spijt (REACTION & ANALYSIS)

Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on Amenra "Boden - Spijt" (official videoclip)
ORIGINAL VIDEO // • Amenra "Boden - Spijt"...
PATREON // / criticalreactions
Vote on future themes and bands, watch the videos early, and participate in live reactions
TWITTER // / critreactions
DISCORD // / discord
BUSINESS INQUIRIES // [e-mail]
BLOCKED VIDEOS // docs.google.com/document/d/1S...
REQUESTS SPREADSHEET // docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
SPECIAL SELECTION LIST // docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

[@GregBourne]

It's funny you noticed the Oathbreaker connection. Amenra, Oathbreaker, as well as some other bands, are part of the same musical collective. The Church of Ra experiments with performance art and features each other in their productions as well as having an overlaping of members. Oathbreaker's singer Caro Tanghe is actually featured on Amenra's new single "De Evanmens". It's a great song, you should definitely check out more Amenra. My favorite song is "Plus Près De Toi".

[@ProgPro96]

"It sounds like the vocalist is yelling for help" is the perfect way to describe Amenra. If you read their lyrics a lot of their songs seem like a cry for help, so I think that vocal style is exactly what they're aiming for.

[@ckokomo808]

Ugh..Key of Geebz has a Leprous video and you have an Amenra. It’s gonna be a great afternoon! You got some Oathbreaker feels because they are in a collective together called “Church of Ra”. Their music is kinda similar musically but emotionally and sonically both are VERY HEAVY. Ps. Thanks for checking them out! I know I’ve been requesting them for a while.

[@brunoguerra2153]

Amenra and Oathbreaker have the same guitar player. There are some songs vocalist e sings with clean voice and they have an accoustic LP with clean vocals only. Sugestion - razoreator or solitary reign

[@allyhewitt1300]

4:41 - Those goosebumbs are why we're here. Don't ovethink it, it's all about the vibes here. And if you can figure those chimes at 7:05 you get it. It's in the feel of thr rythum not the time sig. It goes from the lead, to offbeat to an accent. Amenra are brilliant at it, it's how they check you're paying attention

[@ian3829]

one of the best bands on the planet to see live. Fatum Nos Iunget.

[@moccles]

I got into this band because they were in the poll. Damn, I've been missing out. High tier depressive stuff.

[@CriticalReactions]

I'm now imagining a tier list of "how depressed you'll feel after listening to a band" with Amenra in the S-Tier being shared around social media. 😂

[@moccles]

@@CriticalReactions I'd gladly make one!

[@MoiseDosSantos]

Yooo a metal band from my hometown in Belgium!! So dope :) the second word ( spijt ) means regret en pronounced like the English ( Spade ) but with a hard T at the end

[@CriticalReactions]

Thanks for the definition and pronunciation of spijt. Exactly what I was looking for in the comments.

[@cmillspa1]

To Go On and Live Without would’ve probably fit the melancholy theme a lot more but this song is really good.

[@FellowHuman137]

This song is glorious, and i love black metal and post metal, but this is the only amenra song i really go back to.

[@ckokomo808]

Yo! Going back and watching some older videos of groups I enjoy. Been on a rough spot recently and I always turn to Amenra. I’ve wondered why, and I think it’s mostly two things- the sheer power of their sound and their underlying message as a band. Amenra explore suffering and pain in their lyrics, sound, and performances. They explore the feelings and moods when one is in these spaces. Amenra as a post-metal/doomgaze group really do this well. I love post-metal because it sits and swirls (I always envision a hurricane sitting over an island just barraging it). It gives time to sink into the music and as an extension these ideas. For me, they allow me to sit with these sometimes uncomfortable spaces and process what is going on. The contrasts in their music (which they’ve been exploring a bit more in since Mass Iiii to their most recent album, De Doorn), I think serve a few functions. First, like you said, they allow space for a breath. It’s almost as if they’re reminding you that these are necessary in life! Second, sometimes these “slower” moments are different emotions- like a gentle sadness or confusion, or can be a cry for help. They portray multiple emotions. And third, I find these pauses a reminder that there’s beauty even during the suffering. This ties back to their philosophical explorations- the spiritual significance of suffering. Lastly I wanted to talk about the vocals. In their earlier music they were all pretty much in this style. Amenra are a bit influenced by the hardcore movement which is why they’re more “yell-y” rather than an actual growl. I think this fits their style and message. It’s more of a “cry” for help or a person in anguish. In their newer music, singing and spoken-word is introduced. I find the singing in Mass VI excellently executed. The voice is expanded in order to convey different ideas and emotions. I agree that out of context or first time listen…or even just general preference…the vocals can be ehhh. And very lastly, I feel this is a band that has changed slowly over time. Listening to their first album to now will seem pretty different but they’ve taken 10 years to get to this point. Every album they tweak small things which overtime has led to their fantastic growth (at least I think it is!). Thanks as always for this channel! Hope you check them out in the future.

[@CriticalReactions]

Dude thanks for this! I always love hearing about other people's perspectives regarding music. I think the hurricane visualization is on point. I've regarded post-metal as a "sonic assault" and this idea of a storm just battering an island lines up perfectly with that. The message of the band is interesting to me because I think it lines up great with the style they've chosen. Post-metal's constant assault can be fatiguing and painful at times and to include lyrical themes that augment and dig into that is perfect.

[@makjak111]

Swallow the sun should've been in this week somewhere

[@HateMich]

Early Katatonia as well

[@WTrewarthaJones]

A Solitary Reign by Amenra probably would've fit the theme a bit better but I like Boden too. The vocals are definitely something you have to get used to due to their often one note nature. I get a strong sense of desperation from them as they are though.

[@CJLindermanDragonBugg]

Start to finish, this was my shit... I don't listen to them but I am considering it. I gotta say though, like you I did not like the harsh vocals. Like, at all, haha. It was low enough in the mix though, might be easy to just think of it as an instrument. But yeah, might check them out more, only heard of them before.

[@abdelghanirixos5916]

Oathbreaker :D well amenra the god father of Oatherbreaker and in this genre my friend dig deep with them u will listen to the most powerful and emotional music in this world, They hit us by 2 tracks from upcoming album June 25th dont miss it

[@TheVadrigar]

Amenra is all about pain. There's a concert here (from their own Belgium), where the vocalist literally hangs stones on hooks off his back. Here if you want to check it out- kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4vVd356ZZpoack

[@CriticalReactions]

Oof, that is dedication to a craft. I'm not sure I'd want to watch that but I'll keep the link handy in case I get curious.

[@stephaneficara4501]

There's also this Aorte / Ritual live in which he hangs himself on hooks off his back and stays suspended above the stage : kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHvEnoeLg8plppo Plus Caro from Oathbreaker comes to sing the end of the song while he's up there, and that's great.

[@senorsavage8702]

@@stephaneficara4501 you wanna see someone get punched? No Well here is someone getting shot. Take a hint

[@VestigialLung]

I have nothing meaningful to add, but I absolutely adore this kind of super bleak sounding post metal.

[@Donnerwamp]

The singing is really DSBM-ish, whiny and and howling to a point where it's less about what is sung, but how it's sung.

[@CriticalReactions]

I could get behind that. There certainly is a lot of pain in those yells.

[@FellowHuman137]

Or "A forest of stars - tombward bound" just for the wacky vocals and high production values.

[@FellowHuman137]

Or supercontinent's lakes of iron from vaalbara

[@thewhorocks515]

I really enjoy the post-rock atmospheric elements of this track. Pretty sure I've expressed this elsewhere but my feelings on the vocals is that they'd be great for a particular song or section of a song for emphasis, but if all their songs utilize this same vocal style it would lose so much of its intended impact for me.

[@VestigialLung]

They pretty much all do. There's a black metal song from the early 2nd wave that is deliberately repetitive in an attempt to place the listener into a meditative altered state. I'm not sure if that's what Amenra is going for, but they kind of hit me like that. It's kind of the auditory equivalent of steady crashing of waves slowly eroding the bank for me.

[@FellowHuman137]

As far as black metal is concerned, i triple dog dare you to do a reaction to anything of of pyha's haunted house album. It's ridiculous black metal from a 14 year old korean kid. Apparently the cassette tape swam around the office of metal hammer magazine for months before anyone dared approach it.

[@HateMich]

Katatonia - Brave, Murder, Day

[@pwincessiris]

Spijt means feeling bad for something in Dutch, and how to pronounce it idk how to exlain :|

[@ChristopheFonteyne]

You pronounce it like date or rate, so spate, and it means regret

[@pwincessiris]

@@ChristopheFonteyne I'm Belgian, I know

[@bolleboosjesinhetbos]

​@@ChristopheFonteyneno it doesn't, then it would have been written as speet. I think there's no real equivalent of the Dutch ij sound in English

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

Interesting track. Definitely firmly in the post-metal genre. It does have the same problem I have with most bands in the genre in that it's extremely repetitive and musically simplistic to a fault, but they're also doing a few unique things like the chimes and off-kilter time feels/switches that keep it interesting and prevent it from becoming too monotonous. I still think Cult of Luna does this thing better than the other bands in the genre: they just have more variety and better builds/climaxes to my ears. Vocalist reminds me a lot of Weakling, which is another band that used these tortured screams that existed more to convey emotion than any coherent thoughts/lyrics. I also don't think this really fits melancholy week. Most post-metal is more oppressive/depressive than melancholy, which is a very different kind of sadness.