FDK - Borderline

label: Redblack, 2008
contact: fdkband.com, bandzone.cz/fdk
genre: sludge/post metal
rating: 7.5

Czech sludge? Ever heard about it? I haven´t and I am Czech for something over 22 years (even though thirteen of those don´t really count, as I listened to other kinda "hits"). Now here comes something interesting that claims to be in this genre. One wouldn´t expect too much before hearing it. To make a good sludge that really forces itself upon you, you need a good, or unique sound, or both at the same time (the best variant obviously) and Czech recording studios usually don´t provide such a necessary quality.
But in the case of FDK, surprisingly, the sound is, possibly, the strongest part of the record. Not that the other is bad on the contrary. It has all the cool attributes that you would seek in cool sludging fun, the forceful massive parts, the melancholy guitar pickings, the mixture of those two, the…, well that’s basically all you need for sludge right. But without the sound of the guitars that is somewhere between scream and doom metal, that makes the figures so intense, or thoughtfull, or both, it would just fall into the millions of “nice but I won´t listen to it again” sludge projects, that end somewhere in dusty shelves. But FDK don´t fall anywhere and for that I am glad.
They don´t bet on any primitivistic dirtiness with ultraslow guitars to wear your soul out. Instead they opt for a lighter, melancholic, emotive scales, here enjoying post-rocky influences, there a bit of scream desperation, but still firmly rooted in sludge marshes. It reminds me of the recently reviewed Vanessa Van Basten, crystal clear sound, often some guitar pickings in the background, though a bit more heavy.
Won´t really try for anything more, as I would only fall into the cliché metaphors in which I always fall when reviewing this kind of music. Not overtly original, but heartfelt, well composed and with perfect production. Won´t find any better in this genre in Czech Republic I dare say.

FDK:
Cholda - vocals, guitar
Vanja - guitar, programming
Hujer - bass
Přéma - drums
Babb - vocals, guitar, sampler, synthesizer

8 / 46:04

borderlines:
1. Borderline
2. Last Race Again
3. Feelings of Dessire
4. Grim Creeper
5. DE 175
6. Alone
7. Schizofixtion
8. Hungover

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Panzerballet - Starke Stücke

label: ACT Music, 2008
contact: www.panzerballett.de
genre: fusion/metal
rating: 9.25

Listening to one album six months and constantly not being able to describe it in letters – it is not such an encouraging feeling. For a music publicist it is, simply put, a bad dream. Why is it not possible? Panzerballett from Munich tears down the musical approaches to the individual genres (and there are so many on Starke Stücke), they are not caught into prepared music pigeon-holes and, on the contrary, they make fun of them and move on the border of serious and parody, shortly said: they are unclassifiable.
Within first tones of the opening track called Pink Panther it comes to your mind „somebody got a goddamn good idea“. The instrumental band led by guitarist Jan Zehrfeld took various favourite pop-cultural songs and began to play with their particles. Coming out from this point, the listener can come up with diverse strategies about what to do with such a compositional approach: a) create specific covers of generally well-known songs b) make out of them a postmodern hotch-potch that eventually means glueing other and other references to the core c) play the renowned riffs in your own way. Panzerballett chose d) let the accidental speak, as it is possible to mix all the mentioned approaches together; fantasy has no boundaries.
Panzerballett did not embark on a problematic overdone medley, there is another thing that distinguishes this band. Significantly, they watch all the motifs, riffs, structures, moods, play modes and genres from distance. They are outside the favourite styles and, in effect, they thoroughly avoid being pigeon-holed (fusion-metal mentioned above serves just as an illustration). In association with Panzerballett it is necessary to bring in the link with seriously meant slapstick Yeah!Yeah!Die!Die! of Finnish band Waltari. You ask why? Both groups are linked with one basic feature – playfullness. This means they can make fun of whoever and whatever, they can cope with everything. This implicates larksome spirit of the whole album, which is true without any question, however, all the compositions are intentioned as being utterly serious and not any simple collage.
The guys from Panzerballett are capable of playing everything, then modify it, adjust it, take it from the original context and put it into a new one afterwards: a film melody from Pink Panther is broken up, Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple) is rhythmically punctuated, Wind of Change (Scorpions) is played in an easy jazzy way and what about to have AC/DC at last? Impossible? Come on, Thunderstruck is meshuggised bison, insane and polyrhythmical soulful hardrock. The greatest shock represents a football tune in Friede, Freude, Fussball: in saltatory melody a rhythm changes three times and then comes a polyrhythmical madness again. Absolutely brilliant moment! Involvement of a saxophone is another winning point of this record; Gregor Bürger playing this distinctive instrument asks for attention with his staccato attacks and funky richness. Also thanks to him Starke Stücke has balls!
For Panzerballett will be quite difficult to reach a target listener group even though a connection link should be open-mindedness. The Germans can attract both 70’s jazzrock connoisseurs who desperately cry over present state of this musical style and metal listeners adoring the innovators of the polyrhythmical constructions Meshuggah. Surely they can catch the progfreaks who love such bands like Planet X and Spastic Ink. Despite all these technical qualities, Panzerballett are not a snobbish delicacy for a few devoted fans. This group from Munich (city of renowned ECM), despite its very intriguing playfulness, keeps its singer-songwriter approach where the melodies and straightforwardness play the main role. So there is no doubt they can catch a mainstream audience which will recognize its own favourites. And, I add, even the jazzmen can be grabbed because Panzerballet - despite its progressive approach – plays jazz standards quite often (let the last Sabbath’s Paranoid song be a proper example).
So, the result is a unique record that can not be eroded by too frequent listening.

PANZERBALLETT:
Jan Zehrfeld - guit, bass (6), zpěv (9)
Andreas Dombert – guit (except 4, 5, 6 & 9)
Gregor Bürger - saxophone (except 9 & 10)
Florian Schmidt - bass (except 5, 6 & 10)
Sebastian Lanser - drum (except 10)

hosté:
Ulf Wakenius – guit solo (5)
Nguyên Lê - guit solo (6)
Peter O'Mara - guit solo (1)
Alexander v. Hagke - saxophone solo (4)
Jan Vacik – guit solo (7)
Heiko Jung - bass (5)
Conny Kreitmeier - vocs (9)
Andy Lind – vocs (2 & 4)
Naomi Isaacs - vocs (2)

10 / 47:45

starke stucke:
1. Pink Panter
2. M.w.M.i.O.f.R.
3. Smoke on the Water
4. Friede, Freude, Fußball
5. Wind of Change
6. Birdland
7. Dreamology
8. Thunderstruck
9. Zickenterror
10. Paranoid

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L.E.V. Festival, 1.-2.5.2009@Spain, Gijón, Universid Laboral

Coming to Gijon , small northern Spanish town, for more or less one purpose on Friday evening. To see Aphex Twin next day. Friday was supposed to be more or less an added value for me, so I didn’t really take it so seriously. Mistake. As it turned out, on Friday night lots of interesting things happened as well, so finally this report is gonna be a bit longer than expected. But to stop blabbering around:
Friday morning the usual. The alarm clock ringing. Turned it off. But something kept nagging at my mind and after a few minutes it came. Fuck, I need to catch the bus to Gijon. Stressful way followed, accompanied by a very nice discovery that I had demagnetized my credit card by my mobile phone and that we would have to live on 50 Euros during these three days. Rich holiday ahead, lots of beers and eating out double portions of salmon only.
After six long hours in weird, trying to sleep positions we finally came to Gijón. The city itself is not really anything special, even though surfers would disagree, small pretty usual town with lots of wind and (as I was going to feel during the night) cold. Then came the finding of the camp and as I still hadn´t realized how grave my budget was I took a bus to get there. During the way I finally realized how little money I have and there started my new, especially sweet diet. Bread with nutella. Then we unexpectedly fell asleep in the newly built tent, four hours of pleasant blankness, waking at something like 12 and enjoying my first way to the festival on foot (bus = money, eat the rich approach has its difficulties). Obvious, using all my powers with orientation skills I got lost and finally, after hour and a half of wandering half in fields half between the houses of the rich (eat them!!!), I got to the university area of the festival.
And finally I can start spitting superlatives. Festival with lots of people attending but not too much, superb just newly construed venue in the university with big screen, ideal for the audiovisual concept, no organizational problems, no nazi security guys that almost look up your ass to see whether you are not, for god´s sake, carrying something to drink, all in a pleasant, nice atmosphere with nice people around (no trace of the all so clever all so intellectual guys who live the music), just a nice party.
So we entered the venue and we came exactly for what we wanted. Kelpe was playing. Nice British IDM, cleverly composed beats and arrangements, not overtly original but perfectly functional and enjoyable. The projections nicely fitted the music, sketchy, erratic blend of calming motives, emerging and disappearing, bleeping, a stuck computer switching screen savers to progress to new motives. But to give Kelpe all the credits would be unfair, as he wasn´t alone on the stage, lots of work was done also done by the live drummer, enjoyable to see, enjoyable to listen, as a whole kinda similar to the recent Diamond Watch Wrists by Prefuse 73 and Zach Hill but instrumental and not so broken.
After a little pause there came the main star of the evening, Daedelus. I have to admit I didn´t expect much. Heard his new CD like once and didn´t catch my attention so I expected nice but a bit boring show. But the sweetest surprise of the festival (exactly why I love such events) was just waiting ahead. From the first song infectiously catchy but clever dance music with an eccentric director (and here the word really fits as Daedelus knew perfectly how to make fun for the people in front of him and how to make people dance how he wanted) in Victorian style suit. DIVERSITY, sweet but not over the top melodies, dance rhythms but not headhurting repetition of all the same around, bits of dance, hip hop beats, ambient, abstract rhythms, mixing inside things on one hand in such intellectual veins as Beirut and on the other tough rap niggaz, only wish all the party music could be like that. Seriously I even started to like the album afterwards and it has been one of the most frequent discs spinning around in my playlist. Just to get yourself in a positive mood after one hundred and one days of grey, click here.
Next one to go? Moderat (= Modeselktor + Apparat). Here no surprise happened. Expected boredom from Modeselektor, boredom from Apparat and guess what I got. Two times boredom. One song and out.
Here comes the crucial point of explaining and pouring out my soul. I love bothering people in reports by all kinda alcoholic stories or just counting of beers but in this one you will find nothing like that. Why? The reason is quite simple. I had no money. So I need to find another thing to bother you with and the solution comes quite easy. No money stories, begging, cold, bread with nutella make a perfect substitute for the usual.
After the five minutes of Moderat, the long way home. Here I will adopt the style of storytelling of my old friend Roman from Siberia. Cold. Forest. Cold. Houses. Rich houses. Cold. Dogs. Big dogs. Cold. Road. Big road. Gate. Through gate. Tent. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Long Sleep.

Day two

Waking up at something like eleven in the morning, sweet fragrance immediately entered my nose. Nutella. I take the bread beside it and get out to of the tent to have breakfast. This time the bread was a bit harder, chewier, and Nutella had an unusually sweet taste.
After having a breakfast we decided to go for some sightseeing to Gijon. As I have already told, the city is not really special by anything, just a normal small Spanish town. But something important happened anyways. We went for a meal into a restaurant. Of course we shared one menu in two (because they wouldn´t give us two plates to eat from we had to eat from the same plate even), but still it was a considerable change of the menu and one was feeling almost rich (shame, shame, shame), not such a bad feeling after all I have to say.
Then we came back to the camp to watch the match of the year in Spanish football league, Real Madrid vs. FC Barcelona. Still feeling a bit high after the meal, the pattern of outrageously large spending continued, two beers per person, but it was well worth it. Barcelona ruined all dreams that Madrid had for the primacy in the league and the pub was obviously pretty happy about it, anti-centralism works in Spain as well.
When the football ended we set out for the festival area. This time sharp senses didn´t let anything wrong, no mistakes ending with a desolate field, straight the shortest way for the area, 45 minutes and we were where we wanted to be. Smuggling in a bottle of coke mixed with whisky (things that I managed to bring from Madrid) and quick, quick for the musical productions.
To put it bluntly: second day was more or less only waiting for Aphex Twin. The musical productions before him were either mediocre or slightly above, not so bad as to go away (into the cold) but also not so good as to bang your head. The first one was Eedl, the worst performance I have seen on the festival. Mediocre IDM with tired beats, thousand times played sound “experiments” and boring visual projection. A bit more enjoyable than listening to sound of your modem crunching but still better than staying out in the cold. However, if you add nice dancing under influence lady in front of us, then turning into nice under influence rolling on the floor and finally finishing the story by quickly leaving for the toilets, well, not that bad. More pleasant part of the waiting came with Alva Noto, nice noisy German electronica, although I have kind of different views on how to make a good visual presentation. This one only made your eyes hurt.
Just abit of anxious waiting, the lights go out and the show we had been waiting for begins. Just to get you I context: it wasn´t a solo Aphex Twin gig, his collaborator for this show was Tim Hecker (hard to say whether it was a plus or a minus). And it started noisy, dirty, danceable, often on the boards of electro music. But obvious, Aphex Twin being the DJ, a bit different of an electro than you are normally used to. Lots of weird background noises creating new structures within the old ones, small spiders running down your neck, lots of genre overlaps, from the calm to the maximum noise and back, still with the Aphex Twin handwriting. Pretty demanding listen where noise holes in the head were much more common than the calm subtle creepiness, blunt instruments dominating the softer ones. The videoprojection in which human face was either deformed into various unpleasant shapes or completely deconstructed didn]t really wipe of the sweat from your forehead, rather it even deepened the atmosphere of general creeepiness. After an hour finally comes some place for breathing, half an hour of Drugks. For those who don’t know: more or less ambient work with almost breakcore beats under it, Boards of Canada meet Venetian Snares. Ending track is obvious. Escalation from a tender, fragile ambient to a complete noise/industrial fax machine, 54 Cymru Beats. And a video from the morgue. Autopsy.
Then. Want home. Walk. Cold. Cold. Dogs. Cold. Camp. Sleep. Sleep. Long Sleep.

The pAper chAse - Someday This Could All Be Yours

label: Kill Rock Stars, 2009
contact: www.myspace.com/ thepaperchasemusicspace
genre: indie/noise/experimental
rating: 9

Saving the lengthy talks about how disastrous today´s emo scene is, The pAper chAse on their new disc shows how should proper emo look like. Don´t look for any dyed hair, fringes, stupid fashionable clothes here, nor for the traditional oh so sad clean vocals and wannabe depressive lyrics. Instead you will find four quite ordinary guys who don´t really care about what´s the musical trends around, playing for something around ten years music reeking of emotions, disharmony, full of venomous lyrics that make the sweat come down your forehead. Without any pretentiousness, just the way their hands grew.
Someday This Could All Be Yours continues in this tradition, but still manages to get pretty different from the previous releases. Compared to the last one Now You are One of us, it´s much more melodic, even epic, less noisy, chaotic, less guitars, more strings. One would say that this could lead to the loss of the dark, crawling, eccentric atmosphere. However, even while being more theatrical and epic, The pAper chAse still manage to keep you gasping for air in panic attacks, only now they do it in a more subtle, atmospherical way. In a certain sense, their characteristic balancing on the verge of melody and creepy disharmony is even more forceful than before. Now the melodic parts are much sweeter and thus the contrast introduced by the uprising disharmonies brings about even larger waves of schizophrenia that has always been so characteristic for these guys. The music itself has become much more sarcastic, just listen to This is a Rape, at it´s core quite a merry, joyful song, that nevertheless is completely turned around by subtle creepy backgrounds and lyrics into a living nightmare. Lyrics. Vocals. Someday This Could All Be Yours depends on them much more than any previous album (which probably brings about certain disappearance of guitar parts, when you see the way Congelton gets into singing on this album), and Congelton really brings about quite a performance, chanting, crying, asking for help, despairing, slowly growing in intensity just to tear the place apart with almost epileptical fits, something you definitively wouldn´t guess from his nice boy blue eyes photos. The lyrics not only fit music perfectly, they even support all the musical twists, often it´s precisely them that create the “some things gonna get fucked up” atmosphere and make you shudder in combination with a sweet melody developing under them, the topic of the day here is natural disasters, full of biting sarcasm, theatrical obscenity and paranoia that makes you look over your shoulder.
The pAper chAse has turned onto a more melodic, epic song writing, leaving the guitar noise and chaos behind. Thus they managed to bring their balancing between melody and disharmony even further than before, making the new disc even more hurtful, with the inevitable venomous paranoia handed out in bunches.

THE PAPER CHASE:
Josh Congelton – guitar, vox, programming
Sean Kirkpatrick – synth, piano
Bobby Weaver – bass
Jason Garner - drums

10 / 46:35

this is all yours:
1. If Nobody Moves Nobody Will Get Hurt
2. I Am Going to Heaven With or Without You
3. The Common Cold
4. The Laying of Hands the Speaking of Tongues
5. Your Money or Your Life
6. What Should We Do With Your Body
7. This is a Rape
8. The Small of Your Back the Nape of Your Neck
9. This is Only a Test
10. We Have Ways to Make You Talk

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Rosvita - Podrida Ser

label: Rosvita, 2006

contact: www.myspace.com/rosvita
genre: noise pop
rating: 8.5

Rosvita needs special attention. Asking why? It´s a locla band that can get together in some old backyard, close the door behind themsleves and with no fuss around do everything on their own. To put it shortly, do it yourslef style and for these bands i have kind of a weak spot. Not for all of them obviously, as mostly they sound exactly how would you expect from such an approach (meaning horribly), but for those that can actually do it well and not get lost among th big fishes around that are built with the propagandistic help and money of large labels, when the preferred result are old homey shoes and grease stained trousers win over polished shoes and expensive ties. And exactly Podrida Ser is one of these rare DIY examples, hurray to leaving the world of suits, golden watches and prefectly cut nails, put on old worn out t-shirt, red socks with holes and go to the nearest backyard.
So what are we facing here actually? Colourful mixture of unconventional poppy melodies, basslines supporting with bulldozer solidness taken from noise records and slightly knotty drum figures under all of this. Don´t expect any instrumental exhibitions, neither mind boggling intensity nor ambient stale waters as well. What will mainly attract your attention is the flett-footed infantility playfullness with which is Podrida Ser played, the infectious childish enthusiasm, teh well-meant naivity taht is capable to suck you in even at places where you would normally yawn and stare at the ceiling. Fortunately, the material is not sewn by one thread and so during the half an hour you will hear emotional guitar walls reminding the sad screamo scent as well as careless keybnoard meriness, the hammer hits the anvil in various rhythms and tempos, especially as we are drawing more to the end the music significantly slows down and the consequent dreamy atmosphere is accentuated by protracted trumpets, somwher a smile spreads on your face, elsewhere a tear comes down your cheek. It´s obvious thatv this theatre can´t be played without an adequate sound, but even here Rosvita isn´t out of breath, keyboards with their corny squeky scent tha is equilibratet by solid, to the bottom shelves put bass guitar.
As a summary then: Rosvita presnts on Podrida Ser clever, diverse noise pop that, instead of hiding behind intellectual glasses, pleases with unconcealed enthusiasm, playfullness and sincerity that it contains.

ROSVITA: Manolo – guit, keyb & vox, Mane – bass, Nacho – drums, trumpet & vox

8 / 29:09

jests and puns: Llevame a Caballito DF, Proxima Parada – Quijada Quemada, Hoy no he Visto la Luz, El Croquis, Calcetines Rojos de la Suerte, Desde Marte con Amor, Despertame, Fiera

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PJ Harvey, John Parish - A Woman a man walked by

label: Island, 2009
contact: www.myspace.com/pjharvey
genre: country/folk/alt
rating: 7

After the dark, monotonic White Chalk PJ strikes back with an album made in cooperation with John Parish. A Woman a Man Walked By takes us back to the fun creative songs charged with heavy poetic load that this two artists had accomplished before.
Once again, this pair offer us a short album where you have musical experiments that go from the use of a wide range of country instruments to the weird variations in PJ’s voice (keep an eye to the doggy voice on Pig Will Not).
A Woman a Man Walked By is full of structure richness. Just compare the songs in between them and you won´t find two alike. It starts with a clear water love song, then moves on to fun country, followed by dips of lo-fi desperation and ending with a violent feminist assault. From this small pack of songs you will mechanically retain about three in you memory and without realising it you will start singing it in the streets (probably making up the lyrics).
All these elements result wonderfully in an punkish folk genre. The thing is that we get the impression of having heard this before and indeed we did. Just go back to your shelves and look for Dance Hall at Louise Point and you will get the same arrangements, relisten Rid of Me and you will encounter the same vocals. Plus the poetic charged lyrics talk about the same themes that Polly Jean has been singing for more than twenty years now. Still the cities, still the manly woman and still the desperate love.
In the end, you’ll be happy for the return of this productive pair, in a month or two you’ll forget all about it, throw it to the growing pile of PJ’s albums and just wait for her next big work.

PJ Harvey, John Parish:
Polly Jean Harvey - lyrics, vocals
John Parish - guitars

guests:
Eric Drew Feldman - bass on Black Hearted Love, keyboard on April
Carla Azar - drums on Black Hearted Love and April
Giovanni Ferrario - guitar on Black Hearted Love, bass on April
Jean-Marc Butty - drums (live shows in support of A Woman a Man Walked By)

10 / 38:02

tracklist:
1. Black Hearted Love
2. Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen
1. Leaving Kalifornia
2. The Chair
3. April
4. A Woman a Man Walked By
5. The Soldiers
6. Pig Will Not
7. Passionless Pointless
8. Cracks in the Canvas

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Ephel Duath - Through My Dog´s Eyes

label: Earache, 2009
contact: www.ephelduath.net
genre: experimental rock/post-metal/jazz
rating: 9

Anyone who watches a bit more closely what is happening around must have noticed that in the short career of Ephel Duath we have met with lots of twists and turns: ties, simple black and white stylization, moustaches, old men behind drums, pretending to be painters, pretending to be suffering to get the necessary knowledge, but to look at the world through dog´s eyes? Well, and why not?

If I omit the beginning of their discograpghy (Opera and Phormulla) and remixes of Pain necessary to know, Through my dog´s eyes is already the third variation of the crazy Italian on how to become a jazz player from a true black metalhead. And to tell it straight away, metalhead (rocker) he will stay till the end of his life, if we don´t look at how exactly do Ephel Duath profile themselves during their last three albums. But to deny the fact that he has become a jazzman I can´t as well. David is without any doubts a musical genius but also probably a bit of a freak. But to the point….

E still remains connected to metal roots by the strength and energy of the present material, although rhythmically and structurally broken, twisted, re-twisted and then shook around hardly. This might be probably also due to the topic of the album, the doggies on a leash with their owner behind themselves don´t see everything as clearly as a harum-scarum, wildly running stray dog, from this comes the jazzy freedom with which the material is presented to the audience, it´s general expressionism. To the avant-garde side of the specter it is pushed by the work with constructions of the songs and the sound. The fact is that the metal thing as you know it won´t happen here, even though the album is pretty heavy and full of riffs (in the new era of the band the heaviest) and for some maybe even too straightforward; I welcome tracks as Nina or Guardian. However, I don´t see it this way and I call it complexity. Definitely I don´t see the new album as something breaking the qualitatively increasing trend in their discography, it won´t get los for sure, it is a bit more modest with experimentation (it won´t surprise so much), but its holding together better, it has a more common atmosphere, I can feel the interconnectedness of the whole material, when David the fashion designer used one main thread to sew the main corpus and only after used different threads to add the final touches. TMDE is definitely not any turning point in the ED discography, but it has its own firm place inside it and it fits well, as it is still above any genre classification, it is still freaky enough, don´t know if exactly avant-garde, but still it cannot be precisely say what we are talking about here, as metal, rock or jazz it is not. And so I threw the new disc somewhere into the category of earthy, electrifying experimental rock balancing on the verge of various alternative genres, even country at times.

The record sounds pretty often like a jam of southern musicians on heroin (similar to Virus) in some hidden Nashville bar full of cigarette smoke (eyes burn), snooker games (the effort to look normal) and drunk locals (lack of coordination) drooling while looking at the half naked ladies (it is still exciting), but gradually as you get more interested into the music you realize that actually no one is jamming here, the structures are well thought out and arranged. The energy to give you the necessary thrills is not the most important thing here but anyways the music goes around quickly and you are not bored, the important thing here is the feeling and flair for expressing tones, thoughts. The grunge designed guitars meet unconventional guitar picks, rolling slides (that’s where the country feeling comes in), strictly set jazz improvisation ended by naughty sampled aftertastes. David has been holding his specific hand writing since the Painter´s, without any doubt you will recognize it immediately in the beginning what band is playing. The album has a clear analog sound, especially the drums done by Marco Minneman (Necrophagist, Freaky Fukin Weirdoz, Paul Gilbert, H-Blockx, Garry Willis, The Kelly Family, Illogicist ). I would really like to know who will play on the next record, Vinni Colaiuta? I should also mention the absence of Fabio Fecchi and his bass, the album doesn´t sound empty however as vocals and guitars take even more arrangements. Vocals. I really have to say that this time they really do an essential piece of work. Luciano Lorusso George really came close to his limits this time and throws around swarms of vocal styles, switches between shouting, roaring, narration, speech, sometimes even coming close to rap, vocal positions non-positions, in short really takes a lot on his back on this album. The lyrics must be interesting as well – for example just the beginning of Gift: “I have a present for you, It’s a cat! Do you like it? As the cat decomposes, do you like it?”

TMDE is a coherent, something above half an hour long segment of selected freely floating thoughts following one another and mixed together into various interrelated structures. In other words, if you forget for a while all the complicated arrangements, guitar pickings slow downs, certain unwillingness to follow rules, the new disc of Ephel Duath actually brings grunge goes bankrupt attitude and you will never be sure whether you yourself aren´t high still or whether it was all just a dream. And indeed that it was just a dream, just a few doggie thoughts about weather in which you wouldn´t kick a doggie out in the cold passed through your mind.

EPHEL DUATH: Davide Tiso – guitar, Luciano Lorusso George – vox (already ex, now Guillermo Gonzalez – vox), Marco Minnemann – drums (live - Andrea Rabuini or Sergio Ponti - Illogicist)

9 / 32:18

through my doggie´s eyes: Gift, Promenade, Breed, Silent Door, Bella Morte, Nina, Guardian, Spider Shaped Leaves, Bark Loud

bizzaro

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Tak jen pro začátek a aktivaci zatím říkám AHOJ ;)