Collide - Two Headed Monster

I figured I'd been posting way too much metal, so here's a pretty cool album if you're into gothic music.
This is Collide, a duo that's been together since 1992, located in Los Angeles, USA.
The band's name comes from the "collision" of sounds, with singer kaRIN's beautiful ethereal voice and composer Statik's awesome electronic music. As far as the music goes, it is a strange mix of darkwave, trip-hop and a little industrial/EBM and rock thrown in sometimes. This would be their fifth album, excluding their remix albums, and though not my favorite, a pretty cool one.

I would recommend this to anyone into gothic music, or anyone looking for something "softer" than what I usually post here, yet not quite conventional and certainly very interesting, but appropriate to kick back and relax to.

Collide - Two Headed Monster

Tracklist:

1. Tongue Tied & Twisted
2. Chaotic
3. A Little Too Much
4. Pure Bliss
5. Spaces In Between
6. Silently Creeping
7. Head Spin
8. Two Headed Monster
9. Shifting
10. Utopia

The Pianist OST

Time for another score/soundtrack!

This time it's the masterpiece of a movie that The Pianist (directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody and Thomas Kretschmann) was.

The score is written by Wojciech Kilar, although this album only really features a single, brief (but nice) track by him; the rest consists of Chopin's pieces. Some of my favorite compositions by him are featured here, and he's quite possibly my favorite "classical" composer.

If you have never heard Frédéric Chopin, slap yourself in the back of the head for me, and then get this. It's not optional.
I don't wanna rant for long, but Frédéric Chopin wrote some of the most beautiful and depressive music ever. It's not heart-breaking, it's unforgivingly heart-fucking-shattering. He's also easily one of the most skilled piano virtuosi that ever lived.

If you know Chopin and don't like him, then there is something wrong with you. Seriously.

The Pianist

Tracklist:

1. Nocturne in C-Sharp minor

2. Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72, No. 1

3. Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1

4. Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38

5. Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23

6. Waltz No. 3 in A minor, Op. 34, No. 2

7. Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, No. 4

8. Andante Spianato, Op. 22

9. Grande Polonaise, Op. 22

10. Moving to the Ghetto Oct. 31, 1940 *

11. Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4

* = the only track by Wojciech Kilar here.

Macabre - Dahmer

Macabre is one my favorite death metal bands. They started playing together in 1985, in Chicago, Illinois. Notably, they've never had a line-up change.

This long-lived group seems to have used two main different styles throughout the years.
The first is more 80s-like: fast, thrashy, somewhat low-fi, like many other bands in the genre at the time.
The second, newer sound is more of a "modern" sound, with cleaner production, but also slower, groovier, crunchier.
I really enjoy both styles. This band has always features a signature black humor in their lyrics almost exclusively dealing with serial killers and mass murderers, which combined with the afore-mentioned playings styles - which always feature amazing performances from each musician in their respective field - makes for a great, fresh sound, that despite being perfectly able to define the genre as an exmaple, is far from generic.

In this particular album, released in 2000, they only talk about one particular serial killer. As you might've guessed, that's Wisconsin's most (in)famous killer of all time, Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, The Milwaukee Monster.
The album is a biography of the killer, and is therefore in chronological order.
I believe one of the bandmembers attended to Dahmer's trial, where he was found guilty of 15 of the 17 murders he was initially indicted with.

Macabre - Dahmer

Tracklist:

1. Dog Guts
2. Hitchhiker
3. In The Army Now
4. Grandmother's House
5. Blood Bank
6. Exposure
7. Ambassador Hotel
8. How 'Bout Some Coffee
9. Bath House
10. Jeffrey Dahmer And The Chocolate Factory
11. Apartment 213
12. Drill Bit Lobotomy
13. Jeffrey Dahmer Blues
14. McDahmers
15. Into The Toilet With You
16. Coming To Chicago
17. Scrub A Dub Dub
18. Konerak
19. Media Circus
20. Temple of Bones
21. Trial
22. Do The Dahmer
23. Baptized
24. Christopher Scarver
25. Dahmer's Dead
26. The Brain

Revolutionary Road OST

This cold morning I want to share the score to a pretty good and relatively recent movie. Anyone who knows me well will know that I place Leonardo DiCaprio among my favorite actors. While this isn't one of my favorite movies or anything, I thought it was a rather enjoyable drama. DiCaprio is great here, but Kate Winslet is even better. And to further enhance the experience, we have Thomas Newman's great music in this film.
Mr. Newman is quite an accomplished composer, and quite possibly my favorite movie score composer in general. Some of you might know him, others might not know who he is, but he has done many great works, some of which I'll be posting in the future, including Road To Perdition, White Oleander, Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, Jarhead and The Green Mile.
There's also a couple of 40s doo-wop songs as well.

So, if you're into scores, particularly those which are soft, beautiful, haunting and even pensive, then you're gonna like this!

Revolutionary Road OST

Composer: Thomas Newman

Featured artists: The Ink Spots, The Orioles, The Ravens.

Tracklist:

1. Route 12
2. Picture Window
3. The Bright Young Man
4. Hopeless Emptiness
5. Unrealistic
6. Count Every Star [The Ravens]
7. Simple Clean Lines
8. Speaking of Production Control
9. Golden People
10. Night Woods
11. Crying In The Chapel [The Orioles]
12. April
13. A Bit Whimsical
14. Revolutionary Road (End Title)
15. The Gypsy [The Ink Spots]