Review: Various Artists - Music To Play Football By
The Globe And Mail
Never before has football sounded so good.
No offence to Nelly Furtado or Ricky Martin, or the myriad of Latin American artists that have written about the Beautiful Game, but this album blows the lot of them out of the water. Two CDs, 28 tracks, and varying styles make sure there's a little something for everyone on this, although the first CD is primarily heavy metal, including the epic tracks "Angry Football" by Machine Head and "Rampant" by Metallica, both in collaboration with legendary film scorer John Towner Williams, who also penned the first disc's opening track, "The SNFC Theme." All three tracks feature three orchestras - the London Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra - and they sound unbelievably good.
Not that the other eleven tracks on the first disc aren't worth listening to, either. Spurs Network FC captain DC76 makes his first appearance on the track "Endgame" by Fear Factory (which is 1/4 Canadian to begin with - bassist Byron Stroud hails from Vancouver) which sees him go all out with a minute-long keyboard solo in the 6-minute cyber-metal track. Front Line Assembly (whose member Rhys Fulber also co-produced the first disc along with Bob Rock) gave us a double shot of industrial, first with the haunting "Deprivation" then teaming up with industrial rock band Filter to unleash the grating "Circumvent." Finger Eleven went back to the heaviness that made the song "Drag You Down" such a hit with their outing "Don't Hate, Appreciate." Chevelle collaborated with Metallica's lead guitarist Kirk Hammett on the dramatic song "Gathering." Add to this songs by hardcore Hatebreed, Christian death-metal/metalcore hybrid As I Lay Dying, face-melting Arch Enemy, kooky Armenian-American fusion-rockers System of a Down, the Deftones, and Finnish death-metallers Children of Bodom, and you have something guaranteed to keep the place rocking. Anyone for an all-Networkers mosh pit?
The second album is more mellow, but it has its rock moments as well. Winnipeg indie giants Jet Set Satellite start things off with a song they love to play live, "Who Won? (We Won!)" Leeds products Parva then sing about all the things they love about the club that inspired this all (Spurs Network FC) in "This Club," then Incubus makes the supporters laugh (and the opposition probably cry or break something) with the hilariously antagonistic "Suck It Up, Princess." Now Trapt's offering, "Messing Around," might sound like the post-grunge with slightly emo-sounding lyrics that you're used to hearing from Trapt, but it's actually quite clever, praising the integrity of the club - "you won't catch our club messin' around" - and dissing the general state of those clubs who call SNFC rivals, most notably Ars*nal.
The next three tracks are interesting. You have a down-tempo quasi-ballad by U2 (with the same three orchestras that were on the first album) sandwiched in between two drum 'n' bass tracks, the former by Grammy winners Basement Jaxx, and the latter by the always self-reinventing Prodigy collaborating with rapper Twista. Then come the Payola$, with a slightly different lineup than when they were last heard as "The Payola$, although founding duo Paul Hyde and Bob Rock are back. Drummer Chris Taylor, bassist Alex Boynton, and keyboardist DC76 complete the lineup for "Made In Canada."
A couple of more mellow rock songs follow, by Stereophonics and Broken Social Scene respectively. Then we get to the dancy stuff, right near the end. Ferry Corsten and Paul van Dyk (working with Kirsty Hawkshaw and Jan Johnston) drop trance tracks, before Wyclef Jean gives his antagonistic hip-hop take on SNFC's opposition's refusal to do anything out of the ordinary, then Delerium (FLA's ethereal, beautiful ambient alter-ego) wraps it up with "Finale," a haunting, 9-minute-long piece of ambient brilliance.
When I was finally finished listening to this album, a good 2 1/2 hours had passed. But the great thing is, it was 2 1/2 hours of consistently good music.
Full marks. 5/5
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