Our Last Night, Fractured Amygdala, A Sum Of Our Parts

Damnation Angels

From the U.K. 

I came across them years ago on an Amazon recommendation for the “Bringer Of Light” album in 2012, and with so much music being released between the years since and so little time to listen to everything, I lost track of them.

Here we are in 2020, with their third album “Fiber Of Our Being” (fourth if you include the EP in 2009).

Life in a band is tough. It’s even tougher these days, with so much music being released, it’s hard to be heard. From when they started to now, only the Garney brothers are left.

And my favourite tracks are not the main ones, but more of the album cuts like “Our Last Night”, “Fractured Amygdala” and “A Sum Of Our Parts”.

The soft piano on “Our Last Night” has some great vocals with a spine tingling backing choir.

How can you not like a song called “Fractured Amygdala” (instead of using a generic “Fractured Mind” title, they went to the science and pulled a specific area of the brain to write about) with its Nightwish and Symphony X like sound? 

And if the amygdala is damaged, there is a reduction of fear and aggression.

“A Sum Of Our Parts” closes the album with its melancholy.

And I hate the genre “symphonic metal” which these guys get lumped with. It’s stupid and dumb.

Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye – Joe Bonamassa

It’s a stand-alone song, separate from the album that is just below and co-written with Bernie Marsden as part of his Abbey Studios Recording.

You do know who Bernie Marsden is right.

A co-writer with David Coverdale and the guitarist in Whitesnake, with songs like “Here I Go Again”, “Young Blood”, “Fool For Your Loving”, “Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues”, “Lovehunter” and “Trouble”.

And Bonamassa had this to say in a Facebook post about the track;

“I wrote ‘Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye’ about a previous relationship that I was in. We were together for five years, and we held on until the very last day. We fought for it, and fought for it, and we finally figured out it just wasn’t going to work. So that song was very autobiographical. It’s hard to write that way, I’ve always found. But my best songs are like that. Bernie Marsden and I wrote that song together. He has a great way of harmonically putting chords together, and the music has his stamp all over it.“

Bonamassa is his own businessman. He has his fan base which likes his British Blues Rock and Mississippi Delta influences. And of course, with Covid-19 putting a dent in the live business, artists like Bonamassa are affected, because his normal gross average for a gig is over $300K for about 2500 tickets sold.

But Bonamassa has and still continues to build his career, so when others have come and gone, he’ll still be doing the rounds.

A New Day Now – Joe Bonamassa

When Bonamassa rocks out in his bluesy Cream and Bad Company way, with a bit of Skynyrd, I am all in.

And the songs which capture that spirit on the album are tracks like “Cradle Rock” which has a section after the lead break that reminds me of Eddie Van Halen.

“Miss You, Hate You” is country rock and it’s probably the best song that Skynyrd didn’t write. “A New Day Yesterday” is a blues rock stomp.

“Colour And Shape” has a memorable guitar lead and it’s a fusion of different styles, while “If Heartaches Were Nickels” is a blues ballad while “Don’t Burn Down That Bridge” rocks out with its fuzzed out riffs and stompy bass guitar.

Medication – Royal Bliss

Another interchangeable blues rock riff kicks off the song, but it’s the vocal melody that hooks me in and the chorus chords are like “I Love Rock N Roll” with a memorable hook. 

So where’s my medication, you got yours and I want mine. 

If it wasn’t for streaming, I wouldn’t even know about Royal Bliss, but from streaming I have become a fan.

Déjà vu – 10 Years

Their modern rock style is something I like.

Turn off my brain it all sounds the same

And the lyric keeps morphing to say, turn off the songs, they all sound the same and turn off the screens, they all look the same.

We are surrounded by things we like and follow, which leads us to an echo chamber. And the internet is a copy system. It survives by copying. So we read essentially the same story across different websites with just a few journalistic changes and suddenly everything sounds the same.

I’m in my mid 40’s right now and all the new music I listen to sounds the same, basically a new take on an old sound. I still like it, but I get what all the older people I knew back in the 80’s and early 90’s like my school teachers, guitar teachers and work colleagues who grew up in the 70’s said, “that all of the 80’s music was a new take on the 60’s and 70’s sound”.

To them, everything sounded the same.

Stay tuned for parts 4 and 5 for August 2020.