Album title: From Deewee
Artist: Soulwax
Genre: Synthpop
Nationality: Belgian
Release date: March 24
Position in Discography: Eighth
Fear Factor: Low
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: 3.06
Ever heard of a metal musician playing on a pop album before? I guess it probably happens, but I feel it's really odd to see Igor Cavalera, drummer with Brazilian thrash metal merchants Sepultura occupying the drumseat for an album by a synthpop band from Belgium, but here we are. Sounds very Alan Parsons Project when it kicks off with a shortish instrumental, and you can certainly hear Cavalera's drumming on “Missing Wires”, at least I assume it's him. Certainly heavy, and slightly out of phase with the synthy, electronic nature of most of the rest of the music. I must admit, “Conditions of a Shared Belief” gets a little on my nerves. It seems to go on forever, though in reality it only runs for just over three minutes – feels like at least twice that. With three different drummers taking part on this album it's not that surprising that you'll have tracks devoted to, or almost devoted to, percussion, and “Is It Always Binary” is one of these. As a consequence, to me anyway it's quite boring and comes across as real filler material. In fact, there's nothing here I can really point to as catching my attention or standing out.
Hard to imagine anything with either of the Cavalera brothers being boring, but Christ this is. I've yet to hear anything that even shakes me out of falling to sleep, and we're now eight tracks into a twelve-track album, and this nextone is over six minutes long. I'm not sure I'm going to last. Okay, “Trespassers” wasn't terrible, but now we're on another drum solo. Who the hell wants to hear that? Well, not me anyway. Ah well; two tracks left after this. Looks like I will last after all. I did, but man was that boring. Not in a Mount Eerie “save me from this self-indulgent crap” kind of way (perhaps should rethink his band name to Mount Dreary?) but just stultifyingly boring. This is the kind of thing that give synthpop a bad name. Pass.
Check out more from this artist? Absolutely not
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yeah
Expectation Index: 8