Too Many Notes: "Painted" by Evans Blue, and a Connection to "Dread."

As much as I like music, I usually stray away from long, seemingly "show-off" songs that come off as pretentious. Ben's going to kill me, but I can name one band in particular that is bad about that (seriously... 17 minutes for a song? Corgan's out of his mind.)I do grant the exceptions that most people would expect a music fanatic normally would.

Along with that, its extremely hard to introduce a new band to band, unless they're an Indie band ("Lazy Eye" was all it took for me to like Silversun Pickups, though "Panic Switch" remains my favorite). So, imagine my shock when I hear Ben listening to, not only a band that I never even heard of, but a eerily beautiful sounding hard rock band. Of course, its bizarre that I'm saying all of this, because the song I picked to "study" is one of the most disturbing songs that I've ever heard. Yes, its far creepier than anything Marilyn Manson or Tool or even Nine Inch Nails (in speaking of pretentious, overdrawn out songs...)has done. If you're familiar with them, that's hard to imagine, but a nearly ten minute Evans Blue song named "Painted" evokes a feeling that a horror writer from England would use if he chose to use any brain he had left and remake one of the worst movie adaptations he has ever produced.

Before I go any further, I saw the movie Dread before Ben and I met (I saw it at a film festival in Philly), and I hated it for a few reasons. 1: It's not scary, it's sick. It makes Saw look like Bambi. Seriously. If I'm a vegetarian from working with meat, this movie only serves to reenforce that choice. 2: After reading the story, I realized a glaring flaw: Abby was only there for nudity, and to justify torturing a woman. Let me explain: Eli Roth made all of the main characters of Hostel: Part II female because women are never seen as victims in horror movies. You know, except for all of them. Anyway, ever since, horror movies need a "weak female" to torment to be "edgy." Enter: Cute Abby with her birthmark. There to show off that makeup effects team can make a birthmark cover nipple, and there for the writers to torture. Funny, considering that its one of the few Barker stories without sex, and Abby wasn't in the story. As far as I know, the story only took place with three characters, and had nothing to do with a sadistic college, but a science minded one (albeit twisted as all hell).

But the big reason I hated it: it missed that "precious" feeling of dread it was going for. Watching a girl skin herself, is sick, not causing dread. Causing nausea maybe, but not dread. Watching a woman eat rotted meat? Same thing. Watching our bad guy being chased by an axe murderer... well, in this movie, hilarious.

Which brings to our song, "Painted." The first time I heard the ending of it, it sent chills down my spine. I felt like something was right behind me, waiting... watching... getting ready to strike. Doesn't help me that I'm still afraid of certain people... but what could make something that scary? Well, let's start at the beginning of the song. Here's a video. It's here to help you understand what I'm talking about.

As far as I can tell (Evan's Blue songs are vague, generally, so much so that I didn't know "Pin-Up" was about a heroin addict until Ben's friend told me), the song is about a woman at the verge of committing suicide, while her significant other is trying to find a way to tell her not to because he cares about her, despite her mistakes. But, she counters that his argument is stale, and she wants to show him what "its" like. What what's like, exactly?

Next verse, her other says to not worry what everyone else thinks, because he'll clean her "painted wings" until her heroes arrive. This is where the song takes an even darker turn. Painted wings from what? What heroes? Well, remember when I mentioned she wants to commit suicide? Well... she kind of did... sort of. We'll get back to that by the end. Her other mentions that he doesn't want the "venom" and doubt to control her in her final moments. We then get a disturbing visual: he mentions that he hates pouring his heart out, especially when it's "pouring down her leg." Yes, she's "pissing on his emotions" by her suicide.

Let's dissect the chorus real quick.

"Look before you end it all

Look before you shut your eyes
For the last time
There's no more room to go back down
Your picture trends in black and white
(I will show you)
I will show you what it's like "

We've got that the first part is him saying "don't jump," then "don't die on me." That's when she says to him, "your memory doesn't mean anything to me. I'll show you what pain feels like." Again, why is she so tortured? Well, the bridge answers that: "She whispers in his ear, "Don't hurt me, don't forget me, don't hurt me, I'm still not properly together."

She jumped to get away from his abuse. And she survived, and is still afraid for her life. After this though, we get the chorus, but two things change: 1: After "There's no room to go back down," another line is added "Will you fight for me and not back down." 2: Also, a coda: "(If you let me) Your picture trends in black and white (I will show you) I will show you what its like." We now have a third party in our song. Just in time for the instrumental break. Cue awesome guitar solo!

This is one of those "symbolic" instrumentals that bands do in songs like this. The solo is there because the characters are doing something, and the music is illustrating it. What are our characters doing? Well, what ever it is, it can't be good. The music gets extremely dissonant, and, dare I say, off tune?

It is. It's a psychology thing, actually. Watch the end of this trailer, and tell me, why do you feel like something is off? It's not the bad special effect, it's the off tune piano pinging away. When people hear off key notes that are horribly off, the brain tries to translate it as actual music. The auditory section of the brain knows other wise, and a fight ensues. Instead of it being a war, its more or less your emotions are shifted to nervousness. Your brain knows its not right, but wants to translate it to make it right, but your auditory functions won't allow it. Hence, you get nervous.

Musicians use this technique when they want to make something seem scary. They'll also usually put even more dissonance over it. In this case, a man progressively screaming at someone, the drums, the grinding guitar, and several voices, inharmoniously saying "I can see you and you can't see me. I am right here and I'm waiting." This picks up until we get Kevin Matisyn barking the line out like a circus ringleader (which is still pretty frightening), until it dulls down to the piano, the synth, and a man droning "I am right here and I'm waiting" twice before quietly snickering and whispering "Good night." Take a second, especially if you listened to that part, to think about what just happened.

Did her other die, or did they just put the fear of God into him? Either way, do you really want to know? That feeling in the pit of your stomach, that morbid sensation of "Oh my God, what did I just hear" entangled with regret? That, folks and folkettes, is dread, what the movie Dread was missing. Actually, it's what most modern horror movies are missing. That, and William Shatner masks.

With that song done, I need to relax. You know, mellow out. Next edition, I'm going to take the Wolverine back to something a little Old School.

- Alexis