I confused an artist in another post. I thought I was Abney Park, it sounded very similar; turned out to be Hocico, a dark wave mexican-german project.
So I wanted to talk about Abney Park, and it’s awesomely melancholic, piano driven, nostalgia provoking, and at times (right in the chorus) power-feeling song “Victoria“.
According to Wikipedia (and I believe also according to the band itself), they are a “steampunk” band, led by american singer (and multi-player) Pirate Robert Brown.
I will allow myself to differ, in regard to the “definition” of the genre the band plays. What is steam-punk music anyway? I’d say that the band uses costumes and themes regarding the steampunk aesthetics (and that’s cool and all), yet I wouldn’t describe the band as “steampunk”, because I don’t think it defines it’s music. I would say (and again, in my blog, my opinions are subjective) they play industrial/alternative rock.
The way I see it, steampunk is more a literature thing than a musical genre. A story, a novel, a game, a movie; but music? I couldn’t deny the existence of such a genre in the audio realm, but I don’t know any more artists that play it, to better understand it.
In that regard, as I said before, Abney Park uses disguises and imagery of this “sci-fi sub-genre” (as Wikipedia describes it), but it would be the equivalent of saying that Kiss plays heavy metal just because they use an overall “evil” image, make up and costumes, which by the way, I don’t have anything against, I just think that, the way they dress doesn’t define the music they write/play.
And just to be clear: I like Kiss’ songs, love some of ’em, but pop rock aint metal.
Anyway, about the song “Victoria”… it’s beautiful.
Victoria, come back to me…
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