Live Album Review: Soen - Atlantis

I don't cover live albums very often, because I find them almost too easy. A professional band should be capable when it comes to playing their own songs, so they should be good. A band can pick their best songs and essentially make a live record a 'greatest hits', so they should be good. If there isn't something unique about the presentation, a live album should be almost a gimme. If you don't pull it off, the fault is all on you.

Soen is indeed doing something different with this new live presentation, which is what makes it interesting enough to cover. Performed live in studio, the band is joined by string players to give a classical bent to their songs, amplifying the beautiful and emotional aspects that sometimes can be obscured by the metallic crunch. Also, they provide us both a new song specifically for this record, and a cover of Slipknot's "Snuff", which take this a step beyond a simple rehash of their own best works.

"Antagonist" opens things with the soft sound of strings, which are joined by acoustic guitar. There's a soothing air to the song, and the slower pace draws out the melody and gives more space for Joel's voice to emote. Along with the hints of backing vocals, there is a tenderness to the song you can't hear on the heavier version we already know. The band's equation the last three albums has been clear, and this record tips the scales so we fall into the emotional end of the pool. That highlights what makes Soen special, and turns this concert into a meditation.

Because of the nature of this recording, with no audience and no commentary, it sounds more like a re-interpretive album than a live one. That is the sort of thing I find fascinating, and listening to these songs morph with lighter distortion and strings replacing some of the lead guitars, I am swept up in a feeling of melancholy that feels like a thin blanket as the first crisp night of autumn is upon us.

Music is about connection, or at least that is what I have been in search of in recent times. Music is one of the primal ways we convey our feelings to one another, and there is little more satisfying than finding a song that can amplify what is going on in our heads and hearts. I could talk about the intricacies of these performances, and point out the little differences between them and the previously recorded versions, but that wouldn't tell you what is important about this record.

"Atlantis" is a record of feeling, a collection of songs played in such a manner that they can echo and reverberate within us. Metal is not usually thought of as sad, and seldom is that sadness able to see the refracted light on a tear for the rainbow it contains. Soen is able to do that, and never more so than on this album. By stripping away the metallic heft, the emotional weight of the songs comes through stronger than ever, and that is the key to why Soen has been so great. "Atlantis" will not be for everyone, because of what it asks from us, but for me it's a true joy.