It seems that this entire record was written and performed by UK artist Michael Feerick: Guitar, bass, drums, vocals - the whole shebang. Impressive enough as it is, right? Especially since it's a damn good record. But what really makes you start to feel like a useless chump is that this bastard's only 20 years old! I mean, god damn... that's just wild. What he comes up with here is just about 45 minutes of material that ranges from the utterly depressing and bleak melodies of brilliant instrumental opener "23 Jewels" (basically using synths and strings exclusively); to sort of a weird form of indie rock that's not quite heavy, not so straightforward that it becomes too "catchy" or "poppy" at all (though it is memorable); to a tactfully noisy form of droningly layered guitar work that seems to draw constant references to My Bloody Valentine (which is fine as a loose reference, but I wouldn't really rely very heavily on that connection). Expansions on the tone of the intro return in later instrumentals with lulls of distorted guitar and percussion such as "Asphalt" (which is mainly sparse piano and reserves the distant background for guitars and drums) and the awesome "Local Boy Makes God" (the third, final, and loudest of the "instrumentals", though it does use some clouded humming); while "Wiper" is by far the longest track at eight minutes, taking a few minutes to build into its repetitious surge and then allowing for a few more minutes to close with a cavalcade of noise, sparse piano, and generally abstract ambience. "Venosa" is among the more straightforward tracks as a whole, actually referencing a verse/chorus structure very directly with more tangible chord progressions and lead melodies, not to mention a livelier tempo - it's basically among the few "pop" oriented arrangements, sans the fact that as is often the case here there's a good chunk of abstract guitar noise over repetitious percussion before the chorus returns at the end. This approach later rears its head to a lesser degree in "Smokescreen", which carries with it that same sense of energy and melody, but has a little more of a sprawling moodiness to it that I sort of prefer. Both of these tracks are thicker and more enveloping than earlier rocked out structures like "Venus in Cancer" and "Eighty Eight", though the latter does come close for the most part. Meanwhile, "The Ramones Book" is the most restrained of the songs that use vocals, as soft singing mixes closely with piano, faint percussion, and some keyboards - slowing introducing clean guitars that never even come close to controlling the foreground at all. The recording's actually surprisingly rough around the edges, which makes sense to a degree, and does add a certain aesthetic to the work, but I could argue both for and against it. Ideally I think portions of that warm dryness should absolutely be retained, but a little more of a rounded clarity would be nice, too. I think that would allow some of the layering to better show through, while giving the rhythm section a more focal role in adding some density to the at times sort of thin textures. There's definitely a sense of density as it stands, due in no small part to the sheer dynamics of volume and layering, but a clearer mix could allow for more room to work with some of that. It sounds pretty good though, so I can handle what's happening thus far. The packaging looks quite nice, keeping things simple with a matte black and white digipack that uses lots of dirty textures over abstract photographs with minimal use of text. No lyrics are included, which is sort of a shame, but I really dig how it looks, so I'm fine with it overall. This really is an excellent CD, even better than anticipated, and actually close to reaching the next level. It's got a big ol' BMG distribution logo on the back, which sort of leads me to fear that this music might not quite reach as many of the underground audiences as it should, but who knows? It made its way into my hands, so hopefully I'm wrong about that. All I know is that this kid is immensely talented and there are a whole lot of people out there who would appreciate this if they found out about it - from the Cave In types of kids who've "grown up" into listening to Failure; to all those people who think everything sounds like My Bloody Valentine because that's kind of a hot point right now; to individuals into Mogwai, Mono, Explosions in the Sky and the like; to indie rockers or any music fan with an open mind looking to expand a bit. I mean, shit, I mostly listen to metal and hardcore and this is one of the best CD's I've heard all month, so... look out for this guy.
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Running time - 43:11, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: 23 Jewels, Venosa, Smokescreen, Local Boy Makes God]
Amusement Parks on Fire - http://www.amusementparksonfire.com
