This Norwegian act features members of Beyond Dawn and Lamented Souls and drops 11 tracks of very strange music that has a pretty experimental sort of thread throughout. Look out for a significant electronic presence both in the form of ambient soundscapes as well as manipulated instruments and programming, lots of droning guitar and bass textures, soft singing vocals, layered song structures with lots of repetition, etc. Even the more structured and musical tracks have a lot of layers swirling around, so there's always a strange sort of psychedelic twist happening, be it reversed riffs, bright clean guitar runs that pan between independent riffs, heavy reverb or glitchy electronic effects, and so on. "A Nosedive Into Luxury", for example, has a lot of tangible guitar parts that have a really melodic and emotional side, as well as some nice bluesy lead runs, but the track is still left of center overall, ranging from nearly poppy sensibilities to a few passages more akin to noise rock. "Sorry" then follows with a weird prog meets indie sort of style, longer and even more repetitious than the other tracks at six minutes, with lots of angular riffing taking the lead over laidback percussion and soft vocals deep in the mix. "Give Me Violence" is among the more straightforward songs, and also among the best (as are some of the others that are a bit easier to grasp), whereas "Equal in the Sea" has some excellently dark chord progressions smattered with strange electronic sounds to break it up a little. "Half as Good" is another longer piece, again simplistic in hypnotic use of repetition, though as usual there's a lot of layering and added detail. This piece is more emotional than most of the others though, something about the way it carries from start to finish really hits hard, and it's my favorite song herein. The latter half of the disc is stronger than the former, for sure, as the balance of styles achieves a greater equality and favors a more song-oriented type of format without cheapening the overall aesthetic of the music. The recording is a little muffled at times, seemingly intentionally at certain points, but I don't mind it. There's a faint ruggedness that adds a little extra warmth, and it all fits. At times things sound beautifully lush, occasionally passages can get intentionally acerbic, etc. For the most part everything sounds really smooth and flowing though, so it works out great, and the almost oppressive density is often a benefit rather than a blemish. The packaging is incredibly strange, with a few abstracted aerial photos of train tracks, tiny images of toy trains, and one high contrast black and white spread of a weird psychedelic looking pattern. That's it. The only text used is for the band name and the song titles, there's not one bit of recording information, contact information, etc. The typeface chosen is quite awful, but other than it's a curiously minimal presentation that definitely poses some questions. An odd release as a whole. Good, but certainly odd. I guess they were probably going for something a little mysterious, and they've definitely succeeded. An unusual mix of influences, though one that does make sense. I don't know enough about this band to know whether or not more work will surface from them in the future, but it could be nice, because there's definitely room to grow within this approach. The first two tracks are misleading compared to the direction that eventually evolves, but the bulk of the disc more than makes up for that. Not bad at all.
[Duplicate]
Running time - 41:20, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: A Nosedive Into Luxury, Give Me Violence, Half as Good]
Duplicate Records - http://www.duplicate-records.com
