Winter Endless
Sodagreen
Singapore might not experience winter, but Sodagreen’s ballad Rainy Night is still perfect for the season.
Lead vocalist Wu Ching-feng croons gently, offering comfort: “On a rainy night, your heart is shattered, let the rain quietly hide your tears.”
Six years after the luminous Daylight Of Spring (2009), the acclaimed Taiwanese band finally complete their ambitious four-
season Vivaldi project.
Following from the fervour of Summer/Fever (2009) and the melancholy of Autumn: Stories (2013) comes the darker-themed Winter Endless.
Song titles such as Accusing A Murderer, Dream Of Chernobyl and We Don’t Know evoke death, destruction and uncertainty. As if in contrast, the music can be lush and orchestral, blooming against the stark imagery.
The band also venture into new territory with their first all-English track, but the lyrics seem rather plain in comparison to their Chinese ones, which draw on everything from Sisyphus of Greek myth to a nuclear plant explosion.
Album closer Must Keep Singing offers a glimmer of light, but Wu is weary and conflicted even as he soldiers on: “I must keep singing/I cannot keep trying/I must keep dreaming/I must keep cheating myself.”
This seems like a rather sombre note on which to end the four seasons, so good thing there is a second disc.
It features largely instrumental pieces, including a four-movement piano concerto, Ode Of Winter.
It feels like the seed the band planted in Daylight Of Spring, in the track Symphonic Dream, has finally borne fruit.
The circle and cycle are complete.
(ST)