So on September 2nd (of this year), Zarko sent me this. "A British instrumental band strongly influenced by dub," as Wikipedia describes them. last.fm, usually not particularly reliable for genre classification, has them tagged as "post-punk", "ethereal" and "dream pop", which is a diverse mix to say the least.
Soudpool opens with "Hu", a song that features lots of cymbal-clashes and drum hits with a very echoey, out-of-the-way guitar and another guitar that hurts ears. The bass plays one riff pretty much the whole way and goes largely unnoticed. The dreamy riff was good and the drums fit in well enough, but the high-pitched noise left my head hurting. Unpleasant song.
Next up is "Re", a song that again goes light guitar on one side with a higher-pitched machine on the other, though this time it's less ear shatteringly loud and feedbacky. The drums switch from splashes and snares to a hi-hat and toms. The bass plays a catchier hook, and though the instruments are all playing different notes it sounds shockingly similar to the last one. While it's not a bad song on its own, it's not good enough to be entertaining after I just listened to it, though the first time it had a horrible guitar over it.
"Mi" is up next, which is dumb because everyone knows the song goes "Do-Re-Mi" not "Hu-Re-Mi" but I guess maybe in England it's different, you crazy Brits and your lack of dentistry. The bass is playing another catchy little riff that's 6 notes long, and this time there's a stuttery guitar where there was an ethereal guitar and an ethereal guitar where there was a high-pitched guitar, guess they wanted to mix it up. The drums are pretty much the same cymbals-being-hit-with-drum-action-every-few-notes thing. It's a cool stuttering guitar and the echo guitar would fit in a different song, but I'm still bored. I like instrumental music, but thus far the entire album has sounded like the introduction to a song, not a song. This is the best one of the first three - of that I am sure. It'd work excellently as a random instrumental track on an otherwise busier album, or as a jam session. But as the standout track on a group? Not its role.
Next up is "Cs", which is the grade I would give the album thus far. This song opens quiet and progresses to loud - DYNAMICS, something I haven't heard from it yet. The drums are quicker but still cymbals-followed-by-single-drum-hit as before. There's an ethereal guitar on one side and a high pitched one on the other and a bass riff and zzzzzzzzzzzzz
I'll give it this - at least the guitars switch sides the whole time and it actually, you know, had something
happen. Maybe this album is good yet. It even closes with some muffled voices!
"Heset" has a funky little bass opening with a weird effects-ridden echoguitar over top and some sticks hitting the side of a drum. It's almost a little math-y.
Almost. I can't stress it enough. It was very important you understand this.
Almost. As in not really but sort-of.
Almost.
Then it goes back to the ethereal guitar on one end, a weird higher pitched one on the other, cymbals and drum hits (except this time it's the side of the drum - whoa! A change of pace!) and a bass riff of 4 notes.
"Disult" starts with some frantic drumming - this time's it's snare hits followed by a cymbal. Then a bass line that's got a run up the thing instead of just some plucking, and the ol' ethereal-plus-high-pitched-guitar combo at work again. There's some actual chimes in this new one which is definitely something that wasn't there before, and it was almost kind of scare. It's a catchy number that the chimes pitch in and it's a shame the whole bloody song is otherwise exactly the same as the others.
At this point I reached a conclusion: that some guys got together and thought that they could make the ultimate album. They'd take catchy stuff and throw it together. The problem is that the catchy stuff is scattered across a bunch of songs and they all sound the same. This is manufactured music. It's boring, dull, synthetic.
"Gunet" has an ethereal guitar opening with nothing else happening. At this point I started skipping ahead in songs - in this one the drums do their hit-then-cymbal thing, the bass plays a 4 or 5 note riff, the ethereal and high pitched guitars combine and there's an odd little keyboard (maybe?) line under everything. This continues. It ends with a fadeout.
"Soarn" starts with a bass riff and then goes to a very chilled out keyboard, some ethereal-high-pitched guitar and sticks hitting the sides of drums. It's a good serene track, but at this point I was so fucking bored I would've enjoyed a Metallica cover instead of the same goddamn guitar mixture, drum line and bass playing. This song is actually pretty cool on its own, like one of the earlier ones (I forget which and I'm not keeping this album so it's pointless) and there's even like a sitar or something in there but it's so in-line god
"No Motion" is different because it's actually a word and actually it finishes the album. It goes from bass and ethereal guitar to full-on song with high-pitched guitar on one end, continuing ethereal guitar, cymbal-followed-by-drum-hit and bass riff of 3 notes or something. Some catchy parts here but overall another boring song. If something interesting happens in the middle I missed it because I skipped ahead.
Hey, guys, check out this wordcloud for the review, it's pretty funny:
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