The Great Depression

The Great Depression really holds true to the title of the album. The Album is composed by Blindside, a band from Stockholm Sweden. The Great Depression is the bands fifth album and was released August 2nd 2005. The band genre is Hard Rock/Metal. This album was inspired by the lead singer, Christian's, trip to Africa, he was very upset by the things he saw and experienced during his time there which largely influenced this album.

The first track is just spoken and it is rather crackly like a recording of the time of the actual great depression. It has some of the most profound lyrics/poetry that psychologically convicts you. "We are the sons and daughters of a revolution, revolutionaries walking us out of
oppression and into a
no-low promise land.

And this is leaves us with a great sense of sadness dwelling inside our soul. no
one can explain where
its' coming from or where its taking us.

We just know that something is lost, but somehow we are lost, lost"

This is a great tone set for the album because it flows into the next song, "This is a Heart Attack." The use of dynamics is incredible. The band starts with a very on beat crunchy sound and then it just unleashes quite suddenly and unexpectedly. I do not know if it was intentional but the dynamics of this song carry similar attributes to an actual heart attack. When you take the background of the album you really see how the artist visited Africa and had a "heart attack" at the sight of what is happening there. The track the follows, "Ask me now" is also a great suffix to "This is a Heart Attack."

The next song is very morbid and depressing and you can see the prominence of the tragedy that occurs in Africa. The song title is "We are all going to die." The song directly influenced me due to my views on life due to the un-real amount of stress caused by school, the lyrics that applied most were as follows:

"Don't sing your last lullaby

I don't think it's time

We're all going to die
But we're all not meant to die young"

"Yemkela" is the song that the singer is clearly most passionate about. It is about an African boy he met in Africa who was dying of HIV and had 2 months to live. The song has a very intense rhythm line, there is a bi-chromatic approach of ascending and descending nature and then they use the flatted fifth to give it a very dark sound. You can hear it and really notice the music theory behind it, and I feel that it is a very solid song. I highly recommend viewing the lyrics.

The next couple songs all flow into a mountain of a song, starting off mellow, increasing in tension, crashing at its peak, and then reverting to a mellow lyrical balance. The titles are "Put back the Stars," "Fell in Love with the Game," and "City Lights." The song Put back the Stars really talks about realizing that we are lost in life. Fell in Love with the Game really convicts the listener of losing track of what you have and what is happening in life. The last song of this set really has a strong accented beat that the listener can tap there foot to with ease and get into the melody and lyrics.

The next 5 songs lead up to the grand finally of the album, lyrically, musically, and melodically. The very last song is "When I Remember." As the song plays it gives you the illusion that the album is dying because it is written about the way that Yemkela touched the life of the band member. 

This album is filled with passion and musical genius. The album clearly changed for me when i listened to the lyrics but it doesn't change the fact that the music is amazing. 

This album holds a solid 4 stars in my book.