New Music: Comet Gain’s “Clang of the Concrete Swans”

I’ve been enjoying Comet Gain’s upcoming album, Howl of the Lonely Crowd, 13 songs and 42 minutes of intelligent, heartfelt, poetic rock and soul—timeless, honest, and inspiring.

The album’s opening track, “Clang of the Concrete Swans,” is like something from Springsteen’s Born to Run, as it urges:

Find the forever in what you’re thinking
Find the forever in who you’re kissing
Escape, escape, escape into your dream
Escape, escape, escape right out of here

Howl of the Lonely Crowd will be available on October 4th from What’s Your Rupture.

COMMENTS
robertG's picture

The grey area represent sound. The white area, above and below the grey area represents dynamics - or more to the point, lack of dynamics.

In the track above, all dynamic peaks have been heavily compressed, the result is similar to an aural form of Cheeze Whiz where everything is heavily processed to make it sound pro.

I only wish Indie bands would use their Indie status to stay away from radio-type, big industry compression ans make sound just a little more natural-sounding.

Soothsayerman's picture

Agree completely.  What's the point of even using good recording/playback equipment if you're going to butcher the recording like this.

Stephen Mejias's picture

Excellent question.  What is the point?

Sometimes I wonder why I even try to share new music.

So now we're judging music by the amount of gray and white areas in a Soundcloud graphic? For a music file created to be listened to on a computer? Did you even listen to the song? Did you like it? Do you know for a fact that the compression used on this sound file is representative of the music on the actual disc?

I don't disagree: I would like better quality recordings, too, but this post is about music.  The point is music. 

The actual CD sounds okay on my system (NAD C 316BEE integrated amplifer, Emotiva ERC-2 CD player, PSB Alpha B1 loudspeakers, AudioQuest Rocket 33 speaker cables and Sidewinder interconnects).  As is so often the case, the music is even better than the sound. 

If your system is so exceptional it doesn't allow you to enjoy good music, then there is a problem.  

robertG's picture

I'm sorry the post offended you. It wasn't meant as an invitation to a pissing contest and thank you for sharing music. 

Still: Making music louder doesn't make it better.

Stephen Mejias's picture

Your post didn't offend me.  It bored me and annoyed me.

Soothsayerman's picture

Sorry Stephen,

I really really enjoy your music shares. I apologize for not clarifying my post.  I am sure that most of the music I listen to has had the beejeesus compressed out of it and it hasn't dampened my enjoyment of it one iota. (as far as I can know anyway)  It was a bit of a borish comment, but just an observation.

Regards,

David

Stephen Mejias's picture

No worries.  Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.  I just get tired of the usual audiohile complaints which sometimes seem to put sound before music.  Of course, I care about high-quality sound, too, and I agree that the misuse of compression is a horrible thing for music.

John Atkinson's picture

I am taking part in a panel discussion on this subject at the NY AES Convention in October, along with mastering engineers Bob Katz, Bob Ludwig, and audio engineer Thomas Lund. Another panelist, Dr. Susan Rogers, of Berklee College of Music, will be discussing that fact that there does seem to be a generational divide on the use of compression, listeners 30 and under willing to tolerate and even prefer recordings with an amount of compression that older listeners find intolerable. Is this due to physiological differences or to cultural expectations? That is the question.

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

robertG's picture

Some - I - we - you - us - them - others - care enough about Music to wish for better Technical quality. Excessive compression is like capitalized text. We're all free to enjoy - or not - compressed data. Ever been to a live concert where the sound quality was bad? Bad enough to annoy or simply rob just a little pleasure?

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