I hear the engines stop but I'll find my own way down

The Kotaku article that finally pulled me into registering. Bastard World-of-Warcrafting idjits designed Diablo III...

...yes, I'm a tad bitter about this, why do you ask?

But back to music. There's some controversy for Midnight Choir. They're either:

* a Norwegian rock band who split up in 2004; or

* an alt-country band hailing from California

I get the feeling they're likeliest the Norwegian rock band, but it's somewhat hard to tell.

On top of the existing weirdness, is piled on more deranged lunacy than I expected:

The bad things had come for him. [T]he winged pink midgets were hacking their way through the walls. A slippery, slidy something slithered along the ceiling. A voice... 'they're coming out of my eyes'. a giggle... a scream... geologic tremens...

Looking down at bloodstained hands, he tried to piece it all together. What was left of his dream? What was left of him? And looking up he spied a towering steeple of a decrepid old church leanin' high above that crooked little town. And in that moment, a mangled, tremblin' hand reached out and gripped a rope that dangled then tightened and descended, one time down...

The bell did toll a single round. A single rolling sound that rolled upon the moonlight, cascading down the moonlight that spilled across the night, and shattered on the ground.

(From CD Baby's listing of the album You Have Been Warned--oddly, the album that Drunken Elephant March appears on, only under the band name A Midnite Choir, which turns up NOTHING.)

Listening to the few samples they have on that page, they remind me strongly of Tom Waits. Almost too strongly, as if they kidnapped Waits, fed him more whiskey than is usually suggested for breakfast, and shuffled him off into a small studio, surrounded by lanky men bearing accordions.



(Lanky men bearing...well, okay, they don't have accordions. And they're not that lanky. From the fan site Unsung Street.)

Still, there are problems, and I don't think it's just me that's confused. Mainly because the people who wrote, played and recorded Sister of Mercy are not the same ones who wrote, played and recorded Amsterdam Stranded, are they? And does this home recording have anything to do with the song I can't find??

It's so frustrating. Who are these guys? Are there three bands? What the hell is going on?



(I'm fairly sure those four are the country Choir mentioned earlier.)

All right, I give up. This is going to be a two-parter because this is going to take much more research than I can stand at four in the morning. I don't understand why there seems to be three bands with three completely different sounds and the same damned name. This is confusing even for niche music!

I'll get back to you. In or out is tabled until we figure out which band we're dealing with.