Secret Chiefs 3 - Book of Horizons (14 tracks) +Album Reviews

Inspired me to do 17 push-ups

J. Pieretti | Example: Rutger Haur Univ. | 10/25/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If the movie "Conan the Barbarian" were 10 times better, which is impossible, this album would be the soundtrack to it. When I listen to this album, whatever the name of it is i forget, but it inspires me to achieve great acts of strength and barbarian-like athletic prowessness. Yesterday I listened to it and I punched my dad right in the belly. He didn't care though, because he was listening to it when i punched him and his abs were real tight as a result. Today at work I played it in the office at a pleasent office-appropriate volume and everybody made exceptional progress on the projects they were working on. This made the boss and our clients very happy. I was enjoying this album on my way to the store not too long ago, and i was speeding because i'm an awesome driver and i had on my super-rad spandex, and a police officer pulled me over. when he approached the car and heard the music, which was blasting out of the speakers, he wrote me about ten tickets and then told me to go to court and he'll drop most of the charges. He even apologized because it was overly apparent how awesome i was (spandex and all) and that he couldn't help writing all those tickets. That all kind of upset me so i stopped listening to this album for a few days. But then I listened to it again and ended up doing all kinds of variations of push-ups. Now i'm pumped up and all the ladies want a piece of this. Buy this album a couple of times, because your liable to smash it once or twice out of feeling that it's too radical for this dimension."

Transcendence and salvation on one affordable compact disc

Terry Enright | NYC, NY | 08/21/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is of course silly to imagine that music, especially music this stunningly abstract, could be accurately described by words. Part of its purpose is to defy the tyranny of words and find things outside its scope. So all I can do is try to articulate my enthusiasm for a record I've played a few hundred times since I received it about a month ago.

A few of the songs: The 4 will make you dance like a fool to strange Indian music. Exterminating Angel is metal that's blacker than black. You might think it's sloppy or even improvised but a brief lull in the chaos, filled by monastic chanting, will tell you things are otherwise. On the Wings of the Haoma is spooky, urgent surf-rock that, if you close your eye, aurally recreates the feeling of floating in the pacific. Exodus is Morricone-esque on a more grandiose, poignant scale. Welcome to the Theatron Animatronqiue will fill you with visions of soldiers of some unknown, obsolete society, marching with rifles against their shoulders, kicking polished boots high. And The Exile, my favorite, is a perfect mind-movie. You (I) imagine an old west outlaw, spurned and alone, initially despondent, who manages to lose himself in the vast expanses of his desert home, overwhelmed, as the song's majesty overwhelms us.

More important than the songs, it is as a whole a work of astounding beauty, audacity and genius. Please get a copy soon.

(Brief aside: this is pretty far from Mr. Bungle, even with the multiple genres. In Bungle, at least on California, multiple genres coexisted to crash and bleed together. The collision was the point. Trey, more reverential as he ages, generally lets the music stay within its own loose conventions. If there's a wide variety of styles--and there is--it's because Trey is a protean, omnivorous monster, not because he's a post-modern experimentalist.)"

Finally, someone picks up the mantle

Anthony J. Perna | Culture-Free Land of Hopeless Druggie Hicks, PA | 06/28/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With Bungle on indefinite/permenant hiatus, I've long missed their super-dense beautiful strange albums. I've always liked the Chiefs, but I was waiting for Patton to fire the next brilliant album into the world. After Tomahawk and the last Fantomas disc turned out to be "pretty good" rather than great, I was rather ready to lower my expectations. But enter the Book of Truth...Trey is obviously proud of this disc, as the press release on the mimicry website shows. And it takes but one listen to hear the immense work that must have gone into it. The production is every bit as dense and layered, lavish and otherworldly as "California", and I rather think Mr. Spruance's songwriting and ability to execute his compositions has evolved considerably in the interim years. Overall, the only new soundworld on this disc is the death metal of the Holy Vhem (not new to Spruance's ouevre, just the Chiefs'), but everything on this disc is just grander in ambition and complexity to what has preceded it. If you liked the Secret Chiefs before, you will be thoroughly pleased; if you are on the fence, this disc will convert you; if you've never heard them, start here.and the best part is, this is the first disc of a trilogy."

A Masterpiece

electric doom | United States | 01/08/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There really isn't a great way to describe this while being concise, so I'm going to go ahead and type away on this one. This album is what, in my mind, was the greatest release for all of 2004. The musicianship, the themes, the ability to implement so many different styles of music, just really everything goes together so very well on this to make a find piece of music.

There are seven different bands that make this up. Six of the bands are named for the different tracks, and the seventh is the root of all of the bands, which I believe is Secret Chiefs 3 themselves. The six bands that play on the single tracks though are the Forms, Ishraqiyun, Traditionalists, Holy Vehm, the Electromagnetic Azoth, and UR.

The Forms play three of the tracks that I always want to listen to when I put the CD in or hear some of it on the old iPod, or however I hear it. The first song they do, the End Times, is the amazingly beautiful opening track. The second track they do, the Owl in Daylight begins with a sound of almost breaking glass, goes through several different parts, gets heavy, some really cool stuff, and then Welcome to Theatron Animatronique is the final piece, and a great one to end the thing on, with a oompa Russianesque type of sound to it and some really cool stuff before the vocals even come in with the strings, especially on the harp.

Ishraqiyun is a band that plays more of a middle eastern style of music. There's also some Indian sound in there. It's actually somewhat of a cross between the two styles and comes off as sounding very cool. There's a huge rock influence thrown in there, especially when distorted guitar starts to enter into the mix. They throw out some great melodies and just a really cool feel throughout. There's two songs that they do on the album, and they are The 4 (Great Ishraqi Sun) and The 3. Both songs are very good.

The Traditionalists have three songs. The Indestructable Drop, The Exile, and The Electrotheonic Grail Dove. The Indestructable Drop and The Electrotheonic Grail Dove are shorter songs which almost seem to instrumentally describe something happening as you listen, and The Exile is a western themed song, done very slowly and beautifully. They have those three songs, but not much more than five minutes of time on the album, but they make every minute count.

Holy Vehm, with Exterminating Angel and Hypostasis of the Archons, are the grind band on this. Featuring an amazing lineup that, among others (of course including Trey), also includes Cephalic Carnage drummer John Merriman and Youri Raymond of Unhuman. The music is done at high speeds with pretty much every grind element included. The songs are a bit longer though, but they're also slightly broken up.

The Electromagnetic Azoth does On the Wings of Haoma and DJ Revisionist. On the Wings of Haoma is a very percussion based song with some flute and other strings and bells thrown in there, kind of a neat sound to it. DJ Revisionist is also somewhat based in percussion, but features a melody that is more brought out. Both songs are very well done, but are fairly different songs.

UR also does a couple of songs on here. The first one being Book T: Exodus, which is an Ernest Gold song originally, but done in a fairly different way. This one is still very good, but much more grand and phenominal. It just has this very majestic feel to it, another of my favorite tracks on the CD. The second song they do is Anthropomorphosis: Boxleitner. This song is much different, but with the same general instrumentation, but it sounds much more electronic almost, almost like an electronic type of song, but with those instruments in there to give it that classic feel at the same time.

There's a lot more to this album that goes way beyond the music, but I don't want to get too far into that, because I'm sure I'm wrong on several parts with it, and I don't want to get way into something only to be wrong, so I'll cut it off here saying that when you combine all of the above you get one amazing piece of music that will be well respected by those with intelligence and who've been exposed to it for years to come. This is VERY highly reccomended, a classic in my mind."

A cinematic experience. Lush orchestrations. Ear haoma.

J. Alfaro | California USA | 07/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This new record from gifted producer/writer/musical fascist Trey Spruance is many things. Here the adventurous music lover will find a gourmet feast of sound and genre.

There are a number of firsts: This record is the first in a three part project called Book of Truth. The first record to feature the subdivisions of the band (FORMS, Holy Vehm, Traditionalists, UR, etc. all feature different talents). The first time an orchestra has been accompanied by a surf band. The first appearance of Chiefs doing death metal (featuring THE most amazing drummer: John Merriman, we salute you).

But this is also the first time an offering from the Chiefs has failed to top its predecessor once the final track has played. (Book M may be the defining moment for the Chiefs.)

Book of Horizons will rock you. The Ishraqiyun songs are exhilirating middle-east rock with a cinematic edge. The lush orchestrations of FORMS begin quietly - more and more instruments sneak in.... and suddenly this maze of melodies becomes apparent, and you wonder where all this glorious sound crept in. Several songs here harken back to First Grand Constitution in feeling: a melody begins, developes, and then is discarded to focus on a new piece, which in turn developes and is discarded etc.

The only complaint possible is: As with First Constitution, some of the song pieces are so good one wishes they would last longer than half a minute.

Never heard the Chiefs? Try Book M first. If you've already heard them, what are you waiting for? You know this will be excellent!"

Search - Secret Chiefs 3 :: Book of Horizons

CD Details

CD Reviews