Friday, February 22, 2008

Multimedia Friday: With Honor

I'm a lyrics type of gal; when I listen to music, lyrics are one of the first things to jump out at me. Good lyrics will make me re-consider something I might not otherwise touch with a 10-foot pole. Music with good lyrics will sometimes send me off in directions that challenge even my most musically open-minded friends.

"That . . . doesn't sound like music," my friend said, upon hearing one such band, a hardcore punk group called Comeback Kid.

I think she had the same assessment of With Honor, also hardcore punk. I liked the albums because they made me "want to light something on fire." Loud, fast, obnoxious--and messages that meant something. Some of With Honor's songs run together in terms of musical quality, but the lyrics make them worth the listen. "These songs that we're singing are more than moving on, / They're the only ways we're making sense of a world that's small enough to shake, / But it's still strong enough to break us down." Another song, "In A Bottle," includes these verses: "When did life assume the shape of a TV screen, / A work-horse work week, and commute in between? / As we masquerde the days we waste, / Love's stuck on dusty shelves with feelings we forsake. // Before you know it, they'll be selling us blood to bleed and air to breathe, / Along with pre-packed hopes and dreams that always stay at arm's length, out of reach."

My favorite song, though, is "Like Trumpets." I include, with the knowledge that it may sound like incomprehensible shouting over a cacophony of noise to the uninitiated ear,
a link to the lyrics. Enjoy, or don't.


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