Aelo - Blue Music review

Year : 2007
Genre : Ambient Lounge Chillout Club House Synthpop
Label : Independent
Origin : Switzerland
Offiicial site : >-here-<

On occasion, the cover art of a release and the music you hear on the media are correlating to each other with picture perfect accuracy, and Aelo's Blue Music mixtriad is a fluent example on this relatively tame and rare tendency. Aelo, I am almost sure, is a formation that loves the great song "To the Sea" by the fellow Swiss synthpop duo Yello, as pretty much all songs on this modestly and cleverly paced contribution - we are talking about 12 minutes, but 12 eventful minute it is, as I will attempt to make you see and as they will attempt to make you hear - reflect an insatiable urge to convey a transcendental message of the collective Atlantis I personally suspect everyone secretly shares in their soul. You too?? SEE? That's what I'm talking about. That's what THEY make their music about.

Though the opening track is not hesitant nor ashamed to utilize ancient-, yet doubtless timeless drum and bass loops and Flimbo's Quest-grade C64 synths just to make a stand and reveal variations on how to take these brisk and extreme components into the rather literal and cunningly inviting Blue by relying on TRULY top notch melodic hooks, - you know that I'm way too much of a miserable snob to throw around compliments like this easily - the second track is a more mysterious and thrill-filled build with elegant melodic forms and even a piano improvisation session that emerges successful as result of the mere humility it manages to communicate itself with. Richard Clayderman is your Papi and he is playing the piano to make you very very sad. (And he succeeds masterfully.) Read on to know more about this sympathetic EP length contribution.

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Neosis - Neosis review

Year : 2012
Genre : Junk Djent
Label : SAOL / H'Art / Zebralution
Origin : Switzerland
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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My heart is molten gold and its temper is butter, so I will be kind enough to reckon this disk from Switzerland as an interesting toy-take on Meshuggah metal, as opposed of dismissing it as a - to put it mildly - strangely produced disk. Neosis' debut is very hasty to outline the name of the game, which is - as already stated - toy-Meshuggah metal, the similar kind that the most popular djent bands are playing, too. The music shows no actual-, "soul-similarities" to its gargantuan inspirator, as neither does the premire UK Meshuggah fanband Tesseract or the premiere US based Meshuggah fanband Periphery.

These bands attempt to summon the basic character of the aspired music by playing largely mid-tempo, pretty much percussive guitar riffs, substituting the musical rabidity of the inspirator band with alternative metal and metalcore affectations in the "vocillist" context. So your sister likes it secretly, too. This is what Periphery, and Tesseract is doing, as well : on paper, they play "just" djent music, but, in reality, the current "popular" djent scene has its fair share of full scale pop-appeals in my opinion, as it now seems to be commonplace to whine in clean singing fashion to the djenting, all in the spirit of the emo ethos.

Neosis, with its hiiiiighly-highly cybernetic and scientifically fictional and fictionally scientific debut, also noticed this tendency. They have TWO sorrowful metalcore warriors valiantly whining along to the djenting in clean singing fashion, like the talented Spencer Sotelo of Periphery loves to do. This also is a record that sounds soooo fucking strange that it is a declaration of huge charisma on its own, and it is NO irony. Ladies and Gentlemen : BEHOLD the first

JUNK DJENT

delivery. As miresable music critic I hereby deem this release much more significant than the debut of Periphery that which I refuse to review - unless you pay me 99 USD, that is - because I consider the release so staggeringly egotistical with its 70+ minutes of playtime, - oh. my. fucking. g. - that I'd need to research and attempt to popularize words first to express my related true and honest sentiments towards silhouetted profound atrocity. Before I start my tame rant on Periphery, please let me implement the read more link, you  bitch.

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Gurd - Never Fail review

Year : 2011
Genre : Groove Metal
Label : NoiseArt Records
Origin : Switzerland
Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Switzerland's Gurd - which reads "drug" backwards, boy, do I have the Sherlock going on! - unleashes the avid groove metal animal on high octane convince power, and, funnily enough, the lead singer on this debut does a pretty fine job at imitating the vocal style-, even the mere vocal timber of Pantera's Philip Anselmo.

The LP, thank God & Co. and related creators, has a relentless, insatiable urge to hammer you into the nearest wall with the constant sonic rumble it summons and maintains during its eventful 44 minutes, so, if you are looking for the radically intense side of the groove, then this here piece of aural rocket powered bomb is just the one you want to hop on to. The lady sitting on it already is not too hopeless to tolerate, either. Read more to investigate how this release seeks to communicate its massive agenda.


Gurd's debut is heftily produced old school - diffo not a term to wield as weapon in a rant - groove metal with very limited urge present in it to go for the melodic chorus noodle-hooks, and, even when it does that for a minute or two, the disc's propensity to turn commandingly rabid again at any moment without warning, is kept intact in the instant vicinity. This album looks pretty good being in a constant rampage mode, and it is noticeable that the more "gentle" structures of the builds are mainly there to prepare the road for yet another rumble that is about to express its radical character.

There are some key hindrances to this release, as well, and pretty grim ones at that : track number 5, Higher Meaning features some supremely terrible backup vocalist, - backup tormented soul with a coffee addiction and no coffee?? - who obviously managed to escape from the studio people who tried to fill him up on sedation pills. This entity of unknown origins - and let's hope it remains THAT way - truly gives out signals from his throat that immediately register as successive pop-ups of highly illegal space-time rifts that makes the most renowned metalcore plastic hellspawn crumble through all floors to feel embarrassed along the whole way back to toy-hell.

The album also makes some quite strange decisions along the way to smuggle half a smile on your face, like track number 7, called Blame Someone Else : the minor issue herein is not too bad, and it gravitates around the vocal contribution. The Anselmo imitation sometimes sounds relatively forced - nevertheless somewhat efficient - herein. Tame accent issues : imminent. But, on top of that, an authentically "sick", vile mid-tempo build with a vibe that rides on a near-psychotic rant of threats, - Pantera's Walk, anyone? - is interrupted by a super-tepid - is this an oxymoron? - metalcore chorus that diligently sucks mummified camel tits and I don't like it.

It is safe to say though that the album has only minor blemishes to encounter along the way, and even those do not conflict with the oh!, so peaceful institute of instant tolerability. It is worth mentioning that the album wraps things up nice and relevant with a groove metal quasi-instrumental epic clocking in at 6:40. It is a relative rarity to hear a groove metal epic, as far as I know. A tight, angry, authentic contribution fueled by proper love towards the genre. And, coming to think of it, the metalcore action figure lich in track number 5 is more priceless than hideous.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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