Beyond The Warrior’s Eyes - Brain Tarquin & Heavy Friends
Track List:
Beyond the Warrior’s Eyes
The Gates of Valhalla
Quiet Desperation
Behind the Iron Curtain
Faith & Hope
A Soldier’s Journey
La Sierra Del Norte
Common Valour
These Colors Don’t Run
A request
This album was requested from a woman I’ve never met through a friend of mine. I seem to recall hearing about Brian Tarquin before but a quick look at his discography I can’t say with confidence that I’ve heard his work before. This appears to be part of a series of albums where he works with other well known artists, again many of which I recognize their name. I am looking forward to hearing this.
Beyond the Warrior’s Eyes
Violin or some other bowed string instrument accompanied with a rock band. In the opening the rhythm guitar and drums really drive the song forward. The bowed instrument takes over in the middle third of the song really playfully toying with the bass and percussion. Then the guitar returns. I really enjoy the bells with reverb used to help with tone and feel here.
The Gates of Valhalla
The bells I noted are still here and being used to create the tone again. I think this one has Eric Johnson on it. If it doesn’t it should because it sounds like his guitar. The second guitar solo isn’t Eric Johnson. But this song really reminds me of what I’ve heard of Eric Johnson’s work, variations on a theme discovered and developed over the course of the song.
Quiet Desperation
This song starts in a way that makes me want to keep listening, it almost sounds like a Pink Floyd solo at the start. There are a few parts where it sounds like there is a filter put on the drums, it sounds interesting, if isolated I could see it being looped into a trap beat. I enjoyed this one enough that I decided I wanted to listen again right away.
Behind the Iron Curtain
Cold war era Russia reference? This one has the driving rhythm guitar that the first song did with chord hits on the first two beats of many measures. It’s a stylistic choice. Not my favorite, but still interesting.
Faith & Hope
The intro guitar solo is great. I hear a lot of what I associate with David Gilmore here. The drums again are being routed into a filter, this time for a guitar solo and it works really well.
A Soldier’s Journey
The intro is foreboding. Again we have a bowed instrument but with distortion and effects this time it would appear. The talkbox is interesting. Lots of tension in this song.
La Sierra Del Norte
I like the surf rock feel from the rhythm guitar. This song has a bit of a relaxed swing feel with the percussion. A bluesy song.
Common Valour
The relaxed swing feel continues in this one. I suspect that was purposefully done.
These Colors Don’t Run
Very different from the rest of the album, at least to start. Lyrics! I can’t wait to hear this at the 4th of July celebration this year while the fireworks are going off.
Now to research a bit
So this is a project that is dedicated to veterans and helping them get support. I had suspected something along those lines with the titles of the songs and then the overt last song. It's a good album and I plan on checking out more of his catalog, specifically the other album in this series. The background had a lot of what I would describe as “lofi” sounds in it which I believe was deliberate as these are common in the modern soundscape. I did find that I ran into a problem with my ability to put appreciative words on the page when listening to instrumentals. It’s hard to describe a guitar solo, I don’t think most people would want to read “I like the part where it goes Weee dee da doooom…digga da badabi badaba bada ba doo dee da boom…” But now I am tempted to do an entire album describing the music like that.
If you read this far I would implore you to consider donating to this project. You can find more info at https://support.hopeforthewarriors.org/Beyond-The-Warriors-Eyes
