Orquesta del Desierto "Dos" CD
[Meteor City]
Whew, okay. I'm gonna rant for a minute or two here, so you've been warned. Alright, the first track on this thing features a guest appearance by Stephen Brodsky (Cave In), I don't know what he does, but he's credited with having a hand in writing the song, and motherfucker should that song not be the opening cut on this CD. Shit, it shouldn't be on the CD at all, because it fucking sucks... it's an inexcusably horrible song. I can't even put into words how repulsed I thought I was going to be by this entire CD based on that insanely horrific opening track. However, the rest of the tracks are entirely different, far better, and quite good... so the questions remains: Why the fuck is that hideous piece of trash introducing an otherwise interesting and enjoyable set of songs? Anyway, this band features Pete Stahl (Goatsnake) on vocals, along with contributions from numerous guitar players (some of whom also handle other instrumentation), and two drummers. So the end result is a mishmash of the core of usual instruments along with dashes of organ, piano, additional percussion, trumpet, and saxophone. It's sort of bluesy rock with some subtle little southern twangs and country influences, and a laidback sort of melody. Not bad. I still think Stahl sounds a lot like the dude from The Cult, but more suited for this type of music... he's a great singer. As far as standouts, "Summer" is nice and calm with acoustic guitars and just an all around moving flow; "Over Here" is a darker instrumental with lots of sustained guitars and layering, a bit brighter in tone but more sinister atmospherically; and then "Sleeping the Dream" is driven by vocals with piano and such taking a more central role than percussion or guitars, and the composition is fucking amazingly emotional. Awesome. "What in the World" is the only other terrible song on the entire CD, and coincidentally it's the only other track that features horns and a more upbeat rhythm. It's not nearly as obnoxious as "Life Without Color" (the dreaded first song), but still pretty worthless, especially that bullshit Phish sounding solo. This fucker does have great production, though. Everything is totally natural and warm, the mix is clear as day... I can't complain! The layout's alright. I actually like the front cover, and for the most part the color scheme of the desert images throughout the booklet remains consistent. However, a lot of the photographs are of a fairly poor quality, and I'm not into the typeface used for the text. It's legible, but it's made to look like handwriting and it has a weird sort of comic book-ish look in a way, it doesn't really fir the tone of the record. The lyrics are somewhat contemplative personal journeys often dealing with relationships and such. Not my thing on some levels, but they're not that bad either. "Hang on to someday. And know it won't be long until you stand forever with silence all around. Someday may be too late..." I really like 90% of this a lot. I would certainly recommend this to fans of rock music that want something a little more relaxed and unusual. Just skip that first track... I'm telling you, it's murder. (7/10)
Running time - 37:36, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Summer, Over Here, Someday, Sleeping the Dream]
Meteor City - http://www.meteorcity.com

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