This sounds like the soundtrack to a non-existent 80's fantasy movie.
The drummer is fantastic in the tracks where the drum sound sounds more 70's and less 80's.
There's a lot of sounds here that initially seem appealing to me, but after a while I wish there would be some more complexity to the sounds.
It's hard to explain what I mean by that. The synths this band likes to use on this album have a sort of bright, colorful and unsophisticated quality to them. They're appealing much like a handful of gummy bears; sweet and colorful, but best abandoned after a whil for something richer and more nuanced, like some dark chocolate.
It's basically the same thing that turns me off retro wave, like this for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDBbaGCCIhk
Too much sugar, not enough fiber.
The rockier parts are more appealing to me - and the weirder they get, the better. But it does feel more like a load of jamming than any real songwriting. I wish there was more of a feeling of narrative development to the music. Chords and rhythms changing to leads forward rather than looping. This album relies pretty heavily on the following formula: Establish a groove, then ride on it with some variations for several minutes and end the track. This isn't really all that interesting to me.
I'm simplifying it a bit, as there's a bit more going on here, but I do feel like the songwriting is a major problem for me with this album.
If anyone thinks that's a bit of a strange perspective for a music nerd, I'd get that, but I just never really connected with neither prog or rock much.
Or prog-rock. I like my jam on toast, but not so much in music.
Now that I've complained most of the time so far, I'd like to point out that I do find this album enjoyable a lot of the time. It's just that I sort of start wishing there was more/something else going on after a while. It's fun at first, but it gets old for me. The album is 64 minutes long and I feel like my interest in this caps out around the 25 minute mark or so. If this was the soundtrack for a game, I'd probably be more on board with it as it would be in the background then.
There's some good musicianship here and a rock solid rhythm section. I also find some of the keyboard and guitar playing to be quite good.
Thankfully there wasn't much singing going on, because what little there was simply sounded corny to me.
I've regretted my ratings of 2 of my 3 previous album club albums, so I don't know if I feel good about rating this one.
Suffice to say, I'm not keen on returning to this band, but I did have some fun along the way.
Attempting to retcon my scores so far, I'd go with this now:
Hiatus Kaiote - Choose Your Weapon: 5/10
The Divine Comedy - Casanova: 5/10
Goldmund - Famous Places:4/10
Ozric Tentacles - Pungent Effulgent: 6/10
This way, there's some room for worse and better albums, plus the numbers reflect what I think of the albums relative to each other a bit better.
The Album Club: "Pungent Effulgent" by Ozric Tentacles
Linear Mode
