At long last, my next review. Grooveshark link to the album is
here (with some bonus or repeated tracks, I only reviewd the official tracklist as shown on Wikipedia).
This one didn't turn out to be as "psychedelic" as I thought upon my first glance through it. Instead it was more dark and spacey. But I suppose it was still a bit psychedelic - most likely like some bad acid trip - so I suppose it's a close-enough fit for this thread.
Anyway, if you like dark, moody, plodding, spacey stuff, this is your album. Nearly every song, sans the last one, is dark, moody, plodding and spacey. Frankly, I have nothing against dark, moody, plodding and spacey music. But when an entire album is filled with song after song in that category, I get tired of it. Quickly. After about 4-5 songs I found myself eager for the album to end. They're obviously going for a theme or 'concept album' here, but for me the incessant darkness was a bit overbearing.
Look...The Sun Is Rising: Here we have an airy, yet industrial opening song. Scratchy guitar riffs and occasional metallic ambient sounds back a somewhat spacy sounding melody at a moderate pace. Yet darkness prevails, obviously an introduction to an album entitled “Terror.” Not so much psychedelic as just a dark, moody song with some added effects. Good for an opening song given the mood it’s trying to establish, I’ll give it a
6.5.
Be Free, A Way: This is a slower-paced song. Nervous soft background beat against a very slow and deliberate melody sung in constant 1-beat, 3-beat pairs. Long, slow instrumental fade-out at the end. Even airier than the first song. Shades of Pink Floyd here a bit. Nice song, but nothing to write home about.
7.
Try to Explain: This song is similar to the one above except that there’s a bit of crescendo during the refrains. Otherwise you’ve got another nervous background beat set against a plodding and deliberate melody, plus some “spooky” background ambient noises added in.
6.
You Lust: When the opening of this song started the first thing I thought of was, “Kraftwerk.” Once the singing began it wasn’t so Kraftwerk-y, but was instead another slow, dark, moody, “spooky” tune. That said, several times the words “Lust to succeed” are spoken/whispered in a German accent, so maybe the Kraftwerk influence is there after all. Also it has a very minimalist, techno-synth vibe to it, not unlike the German band. I found the “Lust to succeed” a bit annoying. The last 2/3 of this 13+ minute song is mostly a couple of repeated dark synth segment with that “Lust to succeed” repeated once in a while. A couple brief singing segments kick in during the long coda, the last one of which vaguely reminds me of “O Fortuna” in
Carmina Burana.
5.
The Terror: At last we have a faster-paced song. But not by much. Another dark, spacey song with a deliberately-paced melody and a long, drawn-out ending.
4.
You Are Alone: More of the same. Instead of repeating “Lust to succeed” as in two songs above, this time they’re repeating “You are alone” (or is it, “You’re not alone?” I can’t tell). At this point I’m only finishing the review because I’ve committed myself to doing so.
5.
Butterfly, How Long It Takes to Die: This is definitely a faster-paced one. And so far, it’s the “happiest” tune yet. But that’s not saying much. More industrial-sounding guitar punctuations with a somewhat faster, but still deliberate, melody and background synths.
6.5.
Turning Violent: Another slow, minimalist, dark, spacey and plodding song. Kinda what you might expect of a song entitled “Turning Violent.” Nothing new here.
4.
Always There...In Our Hearts: At last we have a genuinely fast and somewhat “upbeat” song. I suppose the lone song on this album like that had to be the last one, no? Can’t make out all the lyrics but it sounds like they’re actually pretty dark, maybe. Lots of solo synthesizer space. I’ll give this a
6.5 not because it’s a particularly interesting tune, but only because it’s a relief from the darkness of all the other songs.
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Final thoughts: In the future I'm going to scrutinize albums a bit more before I commit to reviewing them. It's not a
bad album with badly-written songs, per se, it's just over-repetitive and gives me the feeling of having over-dosed on some depressant. If that's your thing you'll like this album, but personally I'll give it a
5.5 overall rating.