Amor Vincit Omnia

[murphymurphy]

Alright, you guys, you should've known I would do it eventually. This thread is all about what you think PRR's new album means. This could even include what the album means to you (there could very well be a difference). Tell your opinions about what you think the songs mean; are they unified in their theme beyond just love (that's pretty broad)? Or are PRR's mystic lyrics just simply meant to be left alone?
Personally, I think this must be another concept album, Possibly even a continuation from TDT. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, because you can't deny that it would be awesome for a band to have a reoccurring theme or story across multiple albums. Come on, how cool would that be??
But my reasons for believing that AVO is a concept album, even though I can't cite any specific sources or details, should be obvious. Think about it, you can't deny that PRR puts tons of work into their songs. There's no telling how much time they spend mixing and working and getting it just right. Now, how inconsistent would it be if their lyrics were meaningless? They're obviously confusing, so why would a diligent band like PRR just throw some big words and strange themes dealing with death and love together and call it an album? It seems very incoherent to me to have a band put all this effort into instruments and not to have anything going with the lyrics. Everybody has a message, and with PRR and their tendency to link songs together, the chances that this album is a concept album or, dare I say, a continuation album, are much higher than they are for just four people throwing together some words that sound good together.
Not only that, you can obviously hear recurring verses, e.g. "Did you feel love, did you ever burn Avalon?" in three (if I'm correct) songs. That alone should tip a good many of you off that they're not just throwing words out there. I'll be looking into it more and seeing what I come up with, trying to find patterns and similarities from characters in the songs. It seems (just like from TDT, if you read my interpretation) that this album too deals a lot with death and love; indeed, in TDT the two are closely related. I would even venture to say that TDT (including the bonus songs) deal with dead lovers. And multiple times AVO mentions death and love together.

So give me your thoughts on this.


EDIT: Just to maybe jump-start the conversation (at least for the first song), I found that Les Malheurs means "The Misfortunes." Hmm

[flyingswordfish]

I heard Les Malheurs means "The troubles" or "The bad times" (probably the former). I think it's just an album with the theme of love and its extensions into life and death. Maybe how love can feel like life or death.

[ryan]

Is it not the journey through a relationship? I'm sure there's been an interview. I've only had the briefest glance over the lyrics but it looked like that kind of thing to me...

It's at the very least themed, if not a 'concept album' (by which i assume you mean with some kind of narrative...?)

[blondeambassador]

Well yeah, Ryan's right, Jon's already openly said it's an album which reflects on love in its many guises and the upsides and downsides that go with it:

“I wanted it to move from the sombre, softer passages,” Jon says, trying to describe the record, “then in a flash switch to the heavier, more ferocious, angsty bits. I wanted to sum up the euphoria of love coupled with the inevitable despair that can happen at the end of a relationship. There’s the melancholy but then the feeling of finding new love. God, it sounds a bit like a Britney album doesn’t it?!” Well, maybe when he says it like that. But the reality is somewhat different. It’s a study of the conflict at the heart of that love which really sums up this record and this band.

Taken from the Superball website.

So...I don't know, this just strikes me as almost as futile as trying to put the album into a genre...I don't see it s a 'concept' but it does have it's reoccuring theme, which is love, but I don't think in a story type chronoligical way, I'd sort of more refer to it as 'musings on love' perhaps...but I think they sit nicely without possibly being analysed and I certainly don't think the album was intended to have every word looked into, I think quite a lot of it is purposely ambiguous.

Plus, just so you know, if I remember correctly the band stated outright that with TDT they aimed to stay away from 'normal' subjects like, and the one they directly mentioned, was love.


Edit: Do you know what, I voted 'I really don't care' but actually, I think thats a slightly harsh category, it's not that I don't care, I just think there really is a danger of over analysing these things. And thats something I should know about, I'm a literature student...!

[murphymurphy]

lol, does that mean I don't get to write a multiple-thousand word essay about this album?? jk

hey good answer though

[Lawrie]

Given my well known views on PRR's lyrical side, have a wild guess where my vote in the poll went...

[Idz]

I agree with ryan, I'm sure I've heard Jon mention in an interview that it's a concept album that revolves around the theme "love". I might be wrong though.

[jemi]

If you think there's a theory behind it murphymurphy, by all means share it. I for one, would love to read it!

I'm totally in agreement with BA, it's already been stated theres a theme, and theme is a word that definitely hits the nail on the head rather than concept. I think the lyrics to Amor Vincit Omnia are much more straight forward and theres less room for interpretation because they are within context. As you've mentioned before, the repetition of songs are reminiscent of TDT, but I think in this case it's used more to tie the songs together, bound them to same theme, rather than to be looked into. Additionally, the use of a French title just meant that PRR wanted to be fancy, IMO.

But to repeat myself, the album is what you make it, really.