A Journey Through Bands - Shining

Trying to impose your musical taste upon others is a worthless act of self-masturbatory egoism. Understand the sentence before you react. I said, IMPOSE, so calm down your ovaries. Telling someone you really love a song, or could dance all night to a beat is not the same as shoving your preferences down someone's food-hole with a rake. Let's talk about people in the latter category before I get to my point.

If you've listened to music your whole life, worked with music, made music, bought music or whatever, it doesn't mean that you are in a position to tell ANYONE what's good music, and what's bad music, unless you specifically know what their music taste is like, and what bands they'd be inclined to listen to after years of comradeship. There are no judges in that arena, except the people themselves. There is not a person on earth, who can steadfastly claim, that he is the sole inheritor of the one blessed ear that decides what's good and bad, so think about that before you start making any stupid attempts to convert people into joining your selective arena of shit. Now, having said that.

I've played in a band, I've made music and released an album. You can say, I know a little about MY musical preference, and to that extent I'd like to share my impression of this one Norwegian "underdog" band called "Shining". They're mostly unknown outside our borders, but I do think they deserve a special shout-out, so I've decided to give them a small review... Or, mostly, I've decided to impose my impression of them unto you little muggles out there, what you do with that information is totally up to you.

(Also, I think this little entry will be the start of a new branch of blog-posts, called A Journey Through Bands. I'm not an experienced reviewer, but I'll give you my impressions, take it as you will. It'll be a band review for now, not an album review.)

So, let's get started.

Shining, the name easily remembered if you ever saw Jack Nicholson do his memorable "HERE'S JOHNNY!" line in the movie, "The Shining", if not, well, it doesn't matter. If you like the music you'll remember. Trailing off... Shining delivers a powerful mix of shitty attitude, awesome jazzy-electro-funk-metal and a kick-ass sound that will blow your ear buds to smithereens... Well, no. It's not going to hurt your ears, unless you get an opportunity to see them live, then, you'll bleed... No, no you won't... But they're loud, like really, really loud, like impossibly loud. I went to see them live when I had the chance, and I can vouch for my own statement.

Anyway. They started out in Norway, somewhere... Yeah, no. I'm not going to fill out background info on these guys, or any reviews. I'll just say my piece and leave fanatics to uncover that shit, because frankly, as long as the music is good, I'm not going to start caring for fanboyism. 

Their music, can be best described as, conceptual. As in, when you know you had a dream last night, and you're trying to figure out what it was all about, but all you're left with is just a vague concept of it. Shining leaves me in the same spot. I can try all I want to categorize them, but it still gets me nowhere close to putting them inside a cozy booth along with other bands just like them, because, frankly, there are no bands like them. Not that I would know, because I can't claim to have heard all the bands in the world... Alright, fuck it. What I meant was; I've never heard a band like them before. This puts me off guard, because I don't know if to like, or condemn. They won't be cut and wrinkled to fit any of my previous "Music-I-like" drawers, so I'm not sure what to do with their existence.

The first song I ever heard by them was a song called Fisheye. Right from the get-go it made me think of a wild scenario where a Nintendo had taken control of a band, making weird 8-bit metallic sounds while trying to impress that sexy Sega standing across the floor... It was weird, and i can honestly say that my gut wrenched itself. But then, as if Zeus himself decided to strike clarity into my head with a "Lightning Strike Of Wisdom+4", it dawned upon me that I quite enjoyed their, special, kind of music. It made an unknown area around my stomach twitch in a good way, that I had previously mistaken for a musical ulcer. Now, their music calms down nerves, and puts a big'ol jolt in the creative center of my brain thanks to their unmistakeably awesome sound.

If my post is confusing you by now, you're starting to get it. That's what Shining is all about. It fumbles around inside your head, turning knobs that aren't supposed to be touched while in the meantime giving you a friendly reach-around. In the end, they'll leave you hanging with a strange musical orgasm, but at the same time they'll give you that "I've just been raped" kind of feeling. No offense meant to any raped person reading this... And if you're taking offense, it's because you're reading it wrong. Learn to read.

Sooo, let's say that by now I've given you a basic impression of Shining. If I haven't, I have failed, and I'll have to try again some other time with another band. If I did however pique your interest, leave us a shout with your personal opinion in that little box downstairs, either a shitty one about me, or a good one about the band.

Band Awesomeness - 7.5/10 (I have no idea what 1 is supposed to mean yet, and 10, well... no... no idea.)