Customer Reviews

Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let's dispense with the formalities. I was a little worried when I heard Casey had left TREOS, especially after hearing his work with the Dear Hunter. He has an exceptional ear for music and a real knack for composition that is unrivaled in this line of work. And, with regard to "The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi", I would have to say that "Between the Heart & the Synapse" will probably still be more likely to dominate my car's stereo a year or two from now than this effort, but that comes as a small boast when both records may be the ONLY two albums I'm playing a year from now. Both are that good.

And Casey's absence is felt on "The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi" from time to time...but of course there are also numerous moments where you'll forget he ever existed.

TREOS' second effort is one of the most experimental albums to hit the Warped Tour scene...maybe ever, revolving around a concept put forward in a book by Johannes Kepler, pertaining to the tonal theory of Mars, Venus, and Earth--that these three heavenly bodies create a musical tone as they move about one another, as if to sing "mi fa mi" (i.e.do re mi fa so la ti do)--and Kepler proposed that this is as if to denote "misery famine misery". I haven't read the book (yet) so that's about where my knowledge of the idea runs out, by hey, that's why Kepler published a book, so read up. Now, the fact that TREOS sought to take this concept and develop an album around it, should tell you what you're dealing with here: A band steeped in genius, striving for the insane, and (thankfully, successfully) generating beauty from the fold.

I read a good analysis of the songs online and I might as well quote it here because it does a dynamic job of briefly running through the themes:

"Kepler's misery referred to emptiness, and TREOS take up that theme on the opening "Swallow People Whole," further incorporating it into "Obliette (Disappear)" and "Smoke and Mirrors." Kepler's famine, meanwhile, referred not to starvation, but a desire for things. And indeed desire is the subject of "The Crop and the Pest," while lust and craving drive "Saturnus." "The Salesman, the Husband, the Lover" sets the stage for the album's other concept, with its web of disintegrating relationships woven through the set, and is based on a story written by Brendan Brown. This theme reaches a nadir on "The Heir of Empty Breath" as the band pleads to be taken away from the emotional wreckage, with the album closing with the haunting "Pale Blue Dot" (a reference to a Voyager photograph of the Earth) and its repeated refrain, "There's no place like home." (Jo-Ann Green)

My favorite songs on the album are "Swallow People Whole", "The Crop and the Pest", "A Realization of the Ear" (gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous), "Stay Small", and "Heir of Empty Breath", but the whole album is wonderful even though a few of the songs aren't very dynamic and the album could have used a little more musical diversity at times, but who can complain. I'm only comparing this album to their first one. It's still heads above the competition.

All in all, if you're expecting new songs to instantly rock out to, stick to your guns with "The Rival Cycle", "The Evidence", "Broadcast Quality", etc., but you should still definitely check out "The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi" because there's still a ton of songs that will become stuck in your head within the week, plenty of beautiful harmonizing and arrangements to tingle your spine, and enough inventive creativity and insightfulness to make you believe there just might be hope for the world.

There is no way that Mi Fa Mi will receive the same press that the new NIN, Year Zero, has received, but it merits it in every way. Though the focal points are pretty far apart, these two records, in my opinion, are the most relevant records to the state of humanity that I've heard in a long time. With the focus and intensity of this sophomore effort, they have trumped their first record hands down, and those who have heard BTHATS hopefully know that I do not say this flippantly.

TREOS were indeed attempting a universal theme when they tackled a subject like the tonality of our spinning planet. Not only did they achieve that, but they hit such a personal nerve that its difficult to listen without your own heart breaking over the brokenness of the world, and perhaps, your own brokenness as well. You feel the paralysis and helplessness of the central character struggling to come to grips with the toll the earth takes on everything within and everyone surrounding.

The music provides an unbelievably well formed landscape for the dark theme. I was a bit surprised at how "Swallow People Whole" starts the album; it's not a rocker as the name suggests, but it's as if the earth is being handspun into motion by the slow mechanical drums and the deliberate guitar foundations toward the end. It is seductive yet more subtle than the equally engaging "The Crop and the Pest," with the signature dueling vocals and an amazing guitar hook not unlike some of Thrice's work from Vheissu. And I don't think you can walk away from "Smoke and Mirrors" without the rousing, climactic chorus stuck in your head.

"Pale Blue Dot" serves as the perfectly tragic ending to the album, as it does not seek to undo the wounds of the previous 11 tracks, but simply concedes: "I can live with it, I'll live in it...there's no place like home." Wow. It is truly a beautiful song...and it begs you to take its message personally.

It's one of the best purchases you can make this year. Regardless of the year, this record has the potential to be enjoyed by musicians and philosophers alike for a long time to come.

The follow up to the band's 2005 debut release, Between the Heart and the Synapse, is a bit of a departure from their old sound, yet a pleasant one.
Mi Fa Mi is largely a concept album, streamlined by a single theme: earth and it's miseries. The album title was derived from Kepler's theory that each planet produced tones as they orbited the sun, with the Earth and Venus singing Mi Fa Mi back and forth. Kepler went further to say that Mi and Fa stood for Misery and Famine and that these two things were ingrained even in our planet's tonality.

The album's opening track, "Swallow People Whole" sets the mood for the rest of the record and gives listeners a taste of what is to be expected from the remaining tracks. It proclaims that the character mentioned throughout the songs fell in love with an empty place and wants change but won't change and he will believe every single pretty word the earth sings, but it won't mean a thing.

The album then goes into "Oubliette (Disappear)" which is laced with the classic TREOS guitars and harder beat which were present on their previous album. The song is filled with shouts close to desperation singing, "DON'T LET ME DISAPPEAR!" as life passes by and no milestones are to be found, just apathy and empty things, or maybe even nothing at all.

The third track, "The Crop and the Pest" speaks of exactly what the title suggests. The song is a broken promise, a lie of sorts, a sin. It's a pest eating away at a crop, it's a lover turning his other into a concubine, it's humankind becoming a scab on the face of the planet, it's a leech feeding on it's host with greed.

The next song, "The Salesman, The Husband, The Lover" starts out with a quiet, almost eerie sound. The music is wed with tragedy and silent dread but transcends into an almost angry uproar of guitars, vocals, drums and synths then once again moves back into the quiet tragedy that it began with.

Possibly the heaviest track on the albums is next, "Smoke and Mirrors".
The song speaks of the lurid hold that the world has over us, or at least tries to obtain. The song might remind one of the thought of imagining the amount of suffering and depravity that it takes to build up one person like Rockefeller. And the blindness and deception that it takes to capture people in a state that could only be described as Orwellian and of 1984 in nature. They relate, "I'm not your whore, I won't be your Babylon", suggesting that the world tempts people to prostitute themselves, figuratively speaking, with Babylon being a biblical reference to Rev. 17:5-6 in which Babylon is described as the mother of all prostitutes and a place of greed and brutality.

A melodic plea follows with "A Realization of the Ear" in which no real instruments are heard and an electronic sound more than just dominates.

"Saturnus", an energetic track, is next on the line-up. It mixes synths, guitars and the more experimental sound of the album with drums and a heavy tune very effectively, and winds up being one of the best songs on the album along with "Swallow People Whole", "Stay Small" and "Pale Blue Dot".

A beautiful, melodic songs is revealed in "Wanderers" that later twists into unusual guitar riffs and shows the ingenuity of the album. Then "Stay Small" provides listeners with a gut-wrenching reality check and great song to rock out to, asking the question "If you really loved your kids, would you even bring them into a world plagued by such misery" and manifests the sad truth behind the fact that by the time most people reach adulthood they are raped of any evidence of ever owning any innocence.
Misery, Famine, and Misery really go into effect with "Music of the Spheres". This track is instrumental and simply goes back and forth between Mi and Fa on the scale.

Next, "The Heir of Empty Breath" reflects on the disgrace that so many people become by the time they grow old and fuses a solemn plea with heavy guitars, plenty of energy and barley any other elements which define most of the rest of the album, giving the song somewhat of a raw feel.

The final track on the album is surely one of it's best. At 7 minutes and 22 seconds one might become weary of the length but the song does anything but drag on. "Pale Blue Dot" refers to our planet, Earth, and is the title of one of the most infamous photographs ever taken: Voyager 1's shot of the Earth taken from a distance of 4 billion miles, depicting our planet as nothing more than a little dot against the vast background of the universe.
The song has a haunting quality and the repeated line, "There's no place like home" stays with you hours after you've listened to the song.

Overall, the album is a spectacular follow-up to a spectacular debut. The lack of Casey's voice is evident, but nothing to be majorly worried about. The albums falls together perfectly, piece by piece, each song adding something important to the whole.

I discovered this band through ex-vocalist Casey Crescenzo's project The Dear Hunter, whose work I have something of a love-hate relationship with. While perusing material related to TDH, I noticed several recommendations to check out TREOS' debut LP from 2005 which featured Crescenzo at the helms. Surprisingly, I was less than impressed with that record, whereas this one intrigued me enough to keep listening.

After a few months of on-and-off play, I've decided that this is awfully impressive for what it is: essentially, power-chord-driven post-hardcore in the vein of, say, Saosin. I normally wouldn't hold such material in particularly high regard, but these guys know how to do it just right. The lyrics, electronic elements, production, cohesiveness... all top notch. Basically, this is ear candy I don't have to feel guilty for listening to!

The standout songs for me would have to be "Oubliette (Disappear)," "Smoke and Mirrors" (and its follow-up segue "A Realization of the Ear"), and "The Heir of Empty Breath." Sure, these are some of the heavier and less intricate numbers, but I think that's what this genre is all about to begin with. That's not to say softer affairs like "Swallow People Whole" or "Pale Blue Dot" are ineffective or skip-worthy; they're not, but I suppose they don't showcase the band's strengths quite as nicely. To be honest, I have no problem listening to this disc straight through, and it seems particularly suited to jamming in the car.

TREOS may not win any awards for groundbreaking innovation with their presumably-final disc, but they more than compensate with infectious melodies that make the punk/hardcore element palatable even to prog fans such as myself.

4 stars (probably closer to 4.5)

I've been a mild fan of TREOS for years, but most of the songs I downloaded from them were from BTHATS, with only "Smoke and Mirrors" from this album making it to my iTunes. Not because I didn't like the rest of the music from here, but mainly because as I got older, my taste in music radically changed, with my favorite bands evolving from Jimmy Eat World, Anberlin and Taking Back Sunday to music like Arcade Fire, Stars and Rilo Kiley. However, lately I've been talking to an old friend who raves about this band, and called this album one of the best things to ever happen to music. He urged me to download "Oubliette (Disappear)" and I was more than pleasantly pleased with it, and so finally, I downloaded the entire album, sat down and gave it a listen from start to finish.

To stop myself from babbling, I will simply say that this album is absolutely divine in every sense of the word.

Somewhere in the middle of the first song, I got chills and they never really went away. This album is a perfectly crafted masterpiece and it very much blew me away.

Favorites: "Swallow People Whole", "A Realization of the Ear", "Saturnus", "Wanderers" (the repetition of "ashes, ashes, we all fall down"... Oh my God, there are no words) and naturally, "Pale Blue Dot"

Yes, so half of this album made it on to my favorite tracks list. The other half is amazing as well, but those were really the standouts for me.

If you have any sense, you will buy this album IMMEDIATELY.

TREOS fans, I have been a fan of treos from the beginning them and thrice have been tied since I heard treos and in the end I believe that this album has grown up. Some people say it's less heavy... I listen to a lot of metal. There may be less chunky grooves but as an overall feeling the album went more melodic but more intense. The album reaches places that treos could never go with their loss the the dear hunter, places that I believe should be recognized and praised. They traded in some of the pop and expected changes for things that impress in much subtler forms. To let you know what the title of this album means i will cute and paste from wikipedia: From the album press release via [...]:
"The title, The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi was taken from a book written by a late 16th century astronomical theorist by the name of Johannes Kepler [Harmonices Mundi] and the publication just fascinated the band. Kepler's theory suggested that each of the 9 planets in our solar system produced tones as they orbited the sun. Throughout the orbit, Venus would stay a consistent note that was considered the 6th in relation to the rest of the planets. As Earth would shift its tonality, it would create the effect of the notes moving from the major 6th to the minor 6th and back and forth. This is where the "Mi Fa Mi" comes into action, symbolizing the corresponding syllables when singing a scale in relation to the notes of the earth {Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do}. Kepler further concurred that the Earth "singing" Mi Fa Mi could truly stand for Misery, Famine, Misery and ultimately, that is the song the Earth and Venus continued to sing. Misery, referring to an empty place and Famine, referring to the appetite or thirst for things."

Now, as you can see, this brings about immense subject matter and concepts, it inspires an evaluation of the purpose and cycle of existence. i think this band found itself in this album, and didn't care whether those who would be expecting another "synapse" album would find it accessible. Now, i need you to understand that this album led me down my own paths musically, and I appreciate it for it's purpose and it's weight.

I believe this album is something that brings about a swelling of the listener's spirit and that is the true purpose of great music. Let us commend them... even though they broke up after making an album that caught us all off guard. TREOS R.I.P.... or PLEASE come back to us.

It upsets me that people put this album down and put BTHATS on such a high pedestal. Dont get me wrong BTHATS is definetly amazing and I would never take anything away from that. But this album is definetly just as amazing...but in its own way. The mood on this album is definetly way more mellow overall but it works. If people took the time to understand what this album is about you will be amazed. The album is based on a theory by astronomer Johannes Kepler and his theory that each planet produces a tone during its orbit. According to Kepler Earth is Mi Fa Mi (misery famine misery) TREOS takes this theory into their own hands and mixes a story with it. The end result it a mind blowing experience in my opinion. This album has made me smile, cry and just be left in deep deep thought. The work and love that these guys put into their music is unreal and it shows.

Not that the title of this review suggests that this is a bad thing...but it becomes nearly impossible to review this album on a track by track basis. For once I am glad to say this.

The Recieving End Of Sirens have never really been ones to make hook after hook into a radio friendly tune, but this album must be listened to, as was their last one, from track 1 to 12, if one begins skipping around you'll never appreciate what this album is offering. Using the post hardcore sound that has developed around them as their stepping stone they fluctuate from that off and on into ambient gentleness to lead the listener into the next wave of sounds.

Honestly, if you got rid of every track name and every track number, and said this is a 60 minute album called The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi than people would probably understand the conept I've been talking about better. Try this on for size and you may like what you hear.

As A Side Note* - This is progressive rock people, it makes sense that their sound has been developed from being around some "emo" groups, but to classify it as so makes no sense. Think before you type, please

Before you read anymore from criticisms to praises merely enjoy yourself and listen to this album from start to end.

Hold it, I don't want to give this cd 5 stars...because i wish i could give it 6, or 7 or a million this cd is amazing.
Ok, so my friend told me to check this band out, that i would like them alot, so i came on here actually read some reviews, and became intrigued. I was intrested, by there concept of the whole planets singing in harmony, intrested by the description of their sound, post-hardcoreish with some elctronic stuff, being a huge fan of Thrices latest stuff, i was VERY intrigued. So i gave it a listen, and it sounded catchy enough. So I went and bought it. Oh my gosh, it is amazing. So catchy, great vocals, great guitar tones, and band sound it was awesome. Get this CD. Don't be scared, by the first track which is heavy on the electronic, because it gets heavier on the rock and less on the electronica, or if you like the feel and the melodies, get ready for amazing stuff, cuz it only gets better. If someone pt a gun to my head and MADE me make one conplaint, I would say that it was mixed a little quiet it seems...actually forget that, disregard it and buy the freakin cd, NOW>

After your first listen through, you may find yourself thinking, "What?". After their last album, this is going to sound different. There is no "Broadcast Quality", no anthems like "her fingers, like spiders, spun a web my body couldn't shed." The songs take time to develop, with lots of abmient chanting, bells, and foreboding pins & needles. The whole experience feels much more complete, more fantasty-like, and a bit less rocking. It took me a few listens to really get into it. I think that most people who liked their last album will like this, but I'm finding it a bit more difficult to just put this disc in and skip to a particular song. It's better to just start in on track 1 and let it play out. It just works better with this album.

Track 2, "Oubliette (Dissapear) is awesome for only being 4 minutes. And the little outro they play after 3:00 is a classic. "Pale Blue Dot" just ROCKS once it gets going.

This is definitely worth getting