Everyone's a Critic
Apr. 17th, 2003 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deathboyHahaa! DeathBoy on band-wagon-enjumpenment!
've decided to start doing a few brief reviews of stuff that I pick up (music / DVD / games, etc) that I think rule... shouldn't happen too often as I'm normally too skint to buy stuff or spend my money on gadgets I don't need, but what the hell.
Also, whenever I get off my arse and do it, it'll be 100% biased - what I like and don't like and why... I'm farrrr too shallow to claim objectivity :)
SO!
Danse Macabre - The Faint
I was actually bought this by my best-mate-from-shool-days-who-shares-a-brain-with-me - he heard it in a record shop (god lord - that still happens - ace!) and decided I'd fucking love it so duly bought and posted it to me... Phil's ACE!
The album kicks off with "Agenda Suicide"... a retro bass synth and dirty geetar line start up and a few more old-school bleepy synths are added in, followed by a pretty minimal electronic beat.
The thing that grabs me about the beat is that it sounds like vintage electronic 80s drums but there's a slip to them that means either they've been cunning and applied a groove over their drums so they don't sound like quantised 4-on-the-floor beats or they're being played midi-drum style (like ours are live! hurrah!). Net result is that they feel disconcertingly human - not so much as to sound shoddy, but enough that I keep noticing bits - fills, etc. It's nice. I like it.
Vocals... well, again, they hit the spot for me... an effected male vocal with a lick of distortion, a lot of chorus and a little close delay... 80s-fucking-tastic, but it sits exactly right in the mix. The only thing you do end up wondering is if you accidentally put on some human league at the same time as the aphex twin.
The second track is "Glass Danse". Like, well, the rest of the album, the lyrics have slightly surreal, futuristic feel to them... being a roight big Numan fan, this definitely works for me... just enough to get an image / story across and the right level of weirdness to add some ambiguity.
However, the thing that really works for me is the synth-bassline. Galloping, catchy, head-nodding and foot-tapping... I've been waking up with it in my head for the past couple of days, itching to play it again.
Throughout the album, there's a really well-tuned edge between punk, 80s electronica and (to the pretentious, discerning ear) stuff they just couldn't have done without some fecking clever and tres modern technology. It's deliberate Lo-Fi via state-of-the-art, or my pants are Jesus.
Math-punk-pop? Summat like that.
On top of the synths and minimal but rocky almost-industrial beats are a selection of well balanced but dirtyt guitars and, like the synths and the vocals, every song is like a showcase for a particularly good effect on a unit, but done in such a way that it all definitely fits together.
There's a fuck-tonne of vocoding and weird phasing effects, balanced by bizarre, staccato breakdowns and syncopated beats that you initially can't suss, then can't get out of your head. Almost like the metal thing of putting in a weird time-change bit... anyone listening for the first time will be surprised, but on the relisten you find youself grinning and waiting for them.
Perversely, the track "Violent" almost has a garage beat... but that's as far as it goes in that vein... thank fuck... the rest of the track features, as far as I can tell, an instrument from the fucking C64 SID chip emulator I use. Or something very similar.
To sum up: Quirky as fuck, but in a way that grows on you big time. Lots of variety and talent wrapped in a retro facade. You may need to insert your tongue into your cheek to enjoy it to begin with, but after a few days, you're likely to wake up in bed with the fridge.
Marks: ACE! / 10.
've decided to start doing a few brief reviews of stuff that I pick up (music / DVD / games, etc) that I think rule... shouldn't happen too often as I'm normally too skint to buy stuff or spend my money on gadgets I don't need, but what the hell.
Also, whenever I get off my arse and do it, it'll be 100% biased - what I like and don't like and why... I'm farrrr too shallow to claim objectivity :)
SO!
Danse Macabre - The Faint
I was actually bought this by my best-mate-from-shool-days-who-shares-a-brain-with-me - he heard it in a record shop (god lord - that still happens - ace!) and decided I'd fucking love it so duly bought and posted it to me... Phil's ACE!
The album kicks off with "Agenda Suicide"... a retro bass synth and dirty geetar line start up and a few more old-school bleepy synths are added in, followed by a pretty minimal electronic beat.
The thing that grabs me about the beat is that it sounds like vintage electronic 80s drums but there's a slip to them that means either they've been cunning and applied a groove over their drums so they don't sound like quantised 4-on-the-floor beats or they're being played midi-drum style (like ours are live! hurrah!). Net result is that they feel disconcertingly human - not so much as to sound shoddy, but enough that I keep noticing bits - fills, etc. It's nice. I like it.
Vocals... well, again, they hit the spot for me... an effected male vocal with a lick of distortion, a lot of chorus and a little close delay... 80s-fucking-tastic, but it sits exactly right in the mix. The only thing you do end up wondering is if you accidentally put on some human league at the same time as the aphex twin.
The second track is "Glass Danse". Like, well, the rest of the album, the lyrics have slightly surreal, futuristic feel to them... being a roight big Numan fan, this definitely works for me... just enough to get an image / story across and the right level of weirdness to add some ambiguity.
However, the thing that really works for me is the synth-bassline. Galloping, catchy, head-nodding and foot-tapping... I've been waking up with it in my head for the past couple of days, itching to play it again.
Throughout the album, there's a really well-tuned edge between punk, 80s electronica and (to the pretentious, discerning ear) stuff they just couldn't have done without some fecking clever and tres modern technology. It's deliberate Lo-Fi via state-of-the-art, or my pants are Jesus.
Math-punk-pop? Summat like that.
On top of the synths and minimal but rocky almost-industrial beats are a selection of well balanced but dirtyt guitars and, like the synths and the vocals, every song is like a showcase for a particularly good effect on a unit, but done in such a way that it all definitely fits together.
There's a fuck-tonne of vocoding and weird phasing effects, balanced by bizarre, staccato breakdowns and syncopated beats that you initially can't suss, then can't get out of your head. Almost like the metal thing of putting in a weird time-change bit... anyone listening for the first time will be surprised, but on the relisten you find youself grinning and waiting for them.
Perversely, the track "Violent" almost has a garage beat... but that's as far as it goes in that vein... thank fuck... the rest of the track features, as far as I can tell, an instrument from the fucking C64 SID chip emulator I use. Or something very similar.
To sum up: Quirky as fuck, but in a way that grows on you big time. Lots of variety and talent wrapped in a retro facade. You may need to insert your tongue into your cheek to enjoy it to begin with, but after a few days, you're likely to wake up in bed with the fridge.
Marks: ACE! / 10.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-17 01:27 pm (UTC)i get to see them in afew weeks, i am so excited, my nips are glass cutters. two days after i see the faint i see the cramps.
baby, i'm all the alterna you need.
unf.