Comus- The Herald (REACTION & REVIEW)

[@123agidee_2]

The next track “Drip Drip” is their masterpiece in my opinion. Certainly a challenging listen but very rewarding

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

I agree

[@JustJP]

I've heard many good things about it!

[@rrozoff1]

I can't tell you how encouraging/inspiring your work is to me. I'm almost 71 and lived through the late sixties and early seventies; I had hundreds of albums by British groups at the time - imports and cut-outs/DJ copies. Precious few people appreciated the best of it, even when I tried to introduce them to it, and I had despaired of that music ever being appreciated at its proper value. Then you arrived. My deepest gratitude.

[@JustJP]

Thats very kind of you rroz, tha k you so much for your kindness. I appreciate you being here

[@ramoncardinali]

I like it A LOT! Made me listen to the whole record and i was very impressed.

[@JustJP]

Glad you enjoyed Ramon!

[@LoganAlbright73]

Oh man, I can’t wait for you to get to Drip Drip! In my opinion, this is the best album no one has ever heard of.

[@bobgreen8142]

Well, not many have heard of.... it's been one of my most loved albums for over 50 years.

[@jargene]

How fun! I've known this song for a long time and always liked it a lot. Seeing your facial muscles reacting to the song has been like following the music on the pentagram. :)

[@rrozoff1]

Thanks for all your insightful, sympathetic commentary. Might the sound you refer to be some variation of a slide/bottleneck acoustic guitar?

[@JustJP]

Ty RROZ! Definitely could be!

[@rrozoff1]

I can't tell you how encouraging/inspiring your work is to me. I'm almost 71 and lived through the late sixties and early seventies; I had hundreds of albums by British groups at the time - imports and cut-outs/DJ copies. Precious few people appreciated the best of it, even when I tried to introduce them to it, and I had despaired of that music ever being appreciated at its proper value. Then you arrived. My deepest gratitude.

[@RGRG3232]

👍I'm quite glad you listened to this track of theirs. As you will soon find out this is their most accessible track. It is quite a unique tune, even for the 70's which had the most breadth of any decade of popular music but does call for a few repeated listens. Another track of a similar point of interest I'd like to point you toward is a track from 1968 named "White Bird" from the band 'It's A Beautiful Day' (their only song that had any real popularity). It's a real good track with a similar stellar middle section. There's also another tune I'd like to point you to which is "Wind" from the band Circus 🎪 Maximus. Another band with one really good track. It's super mellow and moody (so you have to be ready for that) but it's captivating, to me.

[@rdumontdebeque]

Comus has some crazy songs. I’ve heard a little of their catalog. “Song for Comus” is a trip.

[@twilightpole8634]

This is one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

[@maruad7577]

As someone else mentioned, the odd instrument is likely a saw being played with a violin bow. There is a live version of Patrick Watson's "Lighthouse" where the drummer/percussionist plays a saw if you want to see it done live. I really liked this song. It was a nice way to start a weekend morning. On an unrelated note, I have begun arrangements to start taking classes at university again (free because I am over 65). There is no guarantee because I am auditing the courses (intro anthropology and geography: urban design) but I am excited. Even if I do get in, the classes will not start until January (missed the deadline for the fall session).

[@ianwilkinson4602]

The instrument you are hearing is the male singer using his voice alone.

[@JustJP]

Congrats Mar! Thats incredibly exciting!

[@debs4mysweetbaby]

@@JustJP I'm pretty sure it's not a male vocal... I've seen them perform this live and the guitarist is bowing the strings on his guitar...

[@bobgreen8142]

The strange, saw-like sound on the Herald is made by Andy Hellaby using a slide on his Fender bass.

[@michaelcapewell4811]

Fantastic album, ranging from fragile beauty to complete insanity. This track is kind of in Piper at the Gates of Dawn territory, and i’m talking Wind in the Willows, not Pink Floyd! On the subject of animation, another track that i’ve always thought would make a wonderful, moving animated film is The Sky Children by the UK Kaleidoscope…and btw JP, that’s another song that is a must for a reaction! 👍

[@sphericalharmony1603]

I actually can't remember how the first track sounded, although I remember the creepy album cover. This one sounds ok to me: definitely worth a listen.

[@Lwize]

The soaring vocals get me every time.

[@progperljungman8218]

Attending to see these guys reunite on stage through the influence of i.a. Mikael Åkerfeldt @Melloboat 2008 was a real treat!❤ (Steven Wilson attended as well 😊) Couldn't believe how well they recreated the magic after all those years 😯

[@beatsandskiesmtg]

Oh, I had missed you had been doing this album. It’s a strange one, real deep deep dive into some niche music here. I’ll have to go through to find the first vid I think.

[@maruad7577]

@@Katehowe3010 I have found the lag between request and getting played (for the ones that do get played) is between 6 months to a year. I think I am getting about 1 in 8 played and even then most get played only if other people have requested the same artist as well or if my suggestion gets a lot of likes.

[@maruad7577]

@@Katehowe3010 I definitely liked Martyn. I don't remember Buckley but I suspect I enjoyed it unless I had been in a poor mood for unrelated reasons.

[@beatsandskiesmtg]

The channel is getting more popular and the dude is only human. He can’t listen to everything. And if he, and a significant part of the audience, like prog then so be it.

[@wouter635]

Timeless song

[@tateisgone]

This album is really incredible and unique.

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

Another landmark from the best year in popular music. (if you want I can explain why I say this)

[@tateisgone]

@@Eduardo-Ferreira1982 I agree. 1971 for me personally was the greatest year for music period. Next to 1969

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

@@tateisgone Besides PH (by vdgg) 71 was a particularly relevant and revolutionary year to music here in Portugal. There were 3 or so albums that marked an after and before fronteer.

[@HawkOfGP]

@@Eduardo-Ferreira1982 Can you give me some of those Portuguese bands/albums? I'd be very interested!

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

@@HawkOfGP Hello, of course! My pleasure. Critics often mention three, but I would add at least one more. I must warn you that we didn't have as much prog rock or folk of this kind, in those years. That came after. Here's a brief description of that consensus. 1 - Cantigas do Maio, by José Afonso. Zeca Afonso is the greatest singer songwriter ever. He's often regarded as doing political music, but that's only a small part of what he did. Afonso is as much important to Portuguese music as the Beatles were for the world pop music. After a brief period of uninteresting Coimbra Fado (still in the fifties), the great anesthetic revolution came with the start of the sixties. He came from that background, but he left if behind, creating a new kind of song that didn't exist and that marked the origins of the modern Portuguese song. The sixties were that decade of evolution, but once he got to 71, with this album, we're up to another level. Up to this day, Is still considered the best Portuguese album of all times. He was joined by his friend José Mário Branco, who produced and made almost all the arrangements (with guidelines by Zeca, of course). It was recorded in France, with technical means we didn't have at the times. It's a diverse album, but you can listen to it and by the sound quality it could have been recorded last week. 2 - Mudam-se os Tempos, Mudam-se as Vontades, By José Mário Branco. Yeah, that guy I talked before. He was living in France, escaped to military service and was a strong opponent to war and the fascism we lived in. In his first album he combines modern and urban influences to dress a songwriter kind of song. It's perhaps, sonically speaking, the most accessible album for a non Portuguese speaking. Although the lyrics are as important as the music. 3 - Movimento Perpétuo, by Carlos Paredes. Paredes is the unsurpassed master of the Portuguese Guitar. For non-Portuguese, let's be said he combines influences of Coimbra song (he plays a Coimbra Guitar, slightly small and with different tuning from the more know Lisbon Fado guitar), baroque music, folk, Chamber music and beyond, creating a style you won't hear anywhere else. You just need to listen the first track, the album title song, to feel captivated. Note: this is an instrumental album, but it speaks volumes of country mood of that time.

[@peterscott8009]

A great album. :-)

[@buddygripple7512]

That weird theremin type sound is a singing saw, which is just a saw played with a bow.

[@maruad7577]

It can make for a lovely, eerie sound.

[@debs4mysweetbaby]

don't think so, but that is a good guess... i've seen them perform this and the electric guitar uses a bow on his strings...

[@sicko_the_ew]

I also liked it. Looking at what Google seems to say, and it seems like you can interpret this album (to a large extent, anyway) by reference to ancient Greek/ Roman mythology. So the "star" that vanishes is the planet Venus - which the ancients called Lucifer - bringer of light. Literally that, if you pull the Latin apart. "Luci" (from a word stem we get things like "lucid" from), and "fer" (from a word stem we get things like the word "ferry" from - related to the verb "to fetch/ bring/ carry".) Lucifer, the demigod, was a torch bearer, so I suppose illuminating the ... crepuscular sky. (I'm not kidding. The word is crepuscular.) The pre-dawn. That's the Roman god of pre-dawn, anyway. And then the dawn herself was Eos to the Greeks. (Maybe that's why there are female vocals. I think there might be something for classical scholars hidden in the text) - a goddess with an insatiable lust for mortal men, according to Wiki.

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

Crepuscular, yeah man it’s crepuscular.

[@sicko_the_ew]

@@Hartlor_Tayley And she has rosy fingers.

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

Good intervention, man. I knew Lucifer related to light (I speak a Latin language...) but did not know it meant "bringer if light" (I didn't had Latin in school...)

[@sicko_the_ew]

@@Eduardo-Ferreira1982 Thanks. I'm glad to hear that finally all that Latin is at least of some use. :-) (I went to a school that tried very hard to prevent the world from progressing beyond 1930 - after failed attempts to keep things the way they really should be - as they were in 1875. They thought Latin was good for you. Lucky for me I quite enjoyed it, but I knew many who hated it.) Hmm ... I'm now remembering my second hand text book, whose previous owner expressed that hatred by changing the title from "A New Course in Latin" to "A New Course in Beating". (We weren't caned, we were "beaten". Quite often. It caused bruising, but hasn't left any scars.)

[@TheGomarin]

It's been many years since I met Comus. "The Herald" was the first contact I had with this band. It is a beautiful piece and full of interesting things, from the lyrics to the music; the guitars, the effects, the structure, the voices. As a curious fact, you should know that what you hear at the beginning of the song was done with the electric bass. Once I get into this piece, I get into the entire album. Diane, song to comus, drip drip, etc., are extremely cancelable songs these days; The lyrics are difficult to assimilate, but the music, the entire "staging", is brutally designed to be enjoyed, even when the lyrics describe things that no one would enjoy beyond the architect of those events. a great album but certainly from another era where things were not always healthy. You just have to listen to it with a very open mind. greetings.

[@aaronnarval2031]

Comus es un King Crimson con esteroides. La primera vez que los escuché, entendí que independientemente de que te guste o no, estabas escuchando algo simplemente genial. Como un grupo, puede ser tan increíblemente bueno. Simplemente escucharlos una y otra vez y es imposible cansarse.

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

Halloween coming up. This album will scare the kids. I love this album.

[@JustJP]

🎃

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

Ahah, good point! In the forest there are no pumpkins. This is how it should be.

[@bobholtzmann]

I wasn't expecting this either -- definitely "Dawn Folk"!

[@billythedog-309]

Definitely not folk of any type.

[@debs4mysweetbaby]

I love Comus!! Sad they broke up!! Tangible energy from a unique and wonderful band!! My favourite song of theirs is Song To Comus!!

[@michaosanna]

You can like this or not, I would understand if this will be not your cup of tea. To me, this is clearly in the top ten album ranking of 1971, a year that has more fabulous releases than any other year of the decade. Maybe it's in my personal top 10 album ranking of all time!

[@aarongonzalez7482]

this is indeed beautiful...... just wait. the album returns to the darkness with the next track, and never comes back!

[@peterscott8009]

I think the sound is a musical saw.

[@jaybird4093]

I’m stumped. The parts I liked, I really liked. The parts I didn’t, I really didn’t (voices, overly long repetition, periodic composition that didn’t fit) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️=⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@ianwilkinson4602]

Progressive folk anyone?

[@JustJP]

3 stars means you're interested enough :D

[@jaybird4093]

@@JustJP Yes, I put it on my first listen playlist. There’s much more that I like than don’t. Who knows, maybe the parts I don’t like will grow on me. 🌱

[@JustJP]

@@jaybird4093 that happens a lot with me as well. Example I think of is when I was getting into Opeth. Really liked their music, not so much the growls. Eventually I grew to love both

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

Maybe it could be a bit diverse with such timepiece...

[@mooninites3]

Lol you called it "Dawn Folk"... Literally released on Dawn Records. It's about a piper deity/series of heralds that brings the day/night cycles. There's two distinct poems separated by a somber instrumental bridge. Great choice in words. Listen to Heron, another Dawn Records masterpiece.

[@bellaren1145]

why do so many people hate this album? i thought it was really entrancing, absolutely beautiful

[@Mixatonic]

As others have pointed out the theremin-like sound of the musical saw, I recently saw (no pun intended) a performance by Robyn Hitchcock, where he was accompanied by a cellist and a sawist, and found the combination of instruments very beguiling. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qoPOfIKbiK1oo9U

[@lukashislop5890]

React to Godspeed you black emperor

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

AGREE! If you want music as an experience and not only muzak or scenario sound, GYBE is it!

[@AriadneJC]

I had to go back and remind myself of the previous track, and noticed I'd left a comment saying I was uncertain whether I liked it or not. I did listen all the way through to the first one again, however, and found it immensely more enjoyable and interesting than this one, which started to make me yawn and drift away to other distractions. In the context of the album, I can see it probably fits. On its own? Nah, a little bit weak and definitely (for me) needs the extra quirkiness of the preceding track to hold it up.

[@kenl2091]

Comus are a bit like The Incredible String Band - highly rated by those that like this sort of stuff but this track, like most of the ISB's output leaves me bored. I like folk, I like folk-rock but acid/wyrd-folk has to be a bit weirder than this to hit the spot (or I need to take some acid!) - I do like Diana but this - no thanks. Maybe you should try some Third Ear Band next - that's the good end of this genre

[@Eduardo-Ferreira1982]

This track can be a interval of what comes next. Don't judge it by itself or alone. Tracks like this reminds us why or that artist created albums, not singles, to present better what they mean.

[@parshakamarsh]

I've heard nothing here that makes me want to listen to any more

[@ianwilkinson4602]

@@Katehowe3010 There is no hope for either of you ;-))))))

[@shemanic1]

one of my ex-wife's favourite albums. Not really mine though some bits are ok.

[@jfergs.3302]

I'm finding these guys a little odd. I mean what's with those breaks/silences within the track? But at least not as weird as the first tune. Parts were ok, nice even. Predominanty the instrumental sections. There's some decent acoustic guitar playing. But I wasn't enamoured by the vocal parts bookending this piece. At times I found them a little shrill. An interesting listen, but hardly gripping. Not a band I'd follow up on on my own time, so to speak.

[@a.k.1740]

I only save a minute or two (at most) of this boring jumble. I won't be going back to it next time, that's for sure !

[@a.k.1740]

@@Katehowe3010 Merci 👍

[@pentagrammaton6793]

I like a lot of prog, I like some folk (sometimes), but I tend to detest folk prog. Something about the mix just doesn't sit with me, and it's often just a mess.