Back in ye olden days --- I'm talking
really far back, like, before even I was born! Yeah,
that far, smartass! --- there were few sights as terror-laden at sea than the plague ship. An outbreak of disease rampant on board and most of the crew likely dead from it, the ship would be avoided like, well, the plague. It could be cholera, typhoid, yellow fever or any of the hundreds of diseases around at the time, many of which (but not all) we can now easily treat, but which back then, around the early nineteeth century we're talking, were lethal and like most diseases of that nature highly contagious, and with usually a quite high mortality rate.
Ships carrying a plague had to stay at sea, flying a special flag that identified them as such so that no-one would come to their rescue and unwittingly contract the disease, thereafter departing and spreading it wherever they went. Not so much quarantine as a death sentence, but back then there was little they could do.
But one thing remained constant about a plague ship: it was to be avoided. If you had to run your ship aground to get away from it, you'd do it. If you had to dive overboard rather than make contact, abandon ship and take your chances in the sea, it was infinitely preferable to joining the crew of what would basically be the walking dead.
And so we come to the idea for this section. There are, occasionally, albums that cross my desk (
who does he think he is? “Cross my desk” indeed! Think he's some sort of high-powered executive in a record label? Quiet, you!) that have no merit at all. I try to see the good, if possible, in anything I review, but once in a while I get an album in which I can see nothing interesting, say nothing positive, that just basically sucks. And when those albums --- rare, thankfully, as they are --- come into my possession I will be sticking them here, so as to warn people off listening to them.
Of course, everything is subjective, and what I hate others may love, or at least see some good in. That's taken as read. But within the sphere of my musical experience I usually know if something is going to be worth a second listen, at some point, and if someone may enjoy it where I have not. Certainly though, I can't account for everybody's taste, so as ever if anyone takes offence to any album reviewed in here, believing it shouldn't be, then I'm sorry but I'm going only on my own tastes. I will always try to dig out the positive in any album I review, but occasionally I find this a fruitless quest, and when that happens, the flag is raised and the Plague Ship will set sail.
Dead river --- 19 ADD --- 2009 (Self-released)
Here's how 19 ADD describe themselves on their website:
”19ADD is a Instrumental Progressive Metal Trio that is endlessly, sometimes miraculously clever in blending their influences into a cohesive state of schizophrenia. Effortlessly blending the genres of Technical Metal, Jazz, & Ambient, the Colorado-based group has produced one of the most energetic and unpredictable debuts of 2010, Dead River .” Uh, no.
First off, their album was released in August 2009, so how it can be one the best debuts of 2010 is beyond me. But well apart from that, I found the album to be boring, overblown, super-pretentious and extremely annoying. Now of course, some of you will probably leap to their defence with phrases like “WTF? You just don't get it man!” and so forth, and sure, you're entitled to your opinion, but so am I. Always one to give a band --- particularly a band that describes itself as “progressive”--- a chance, I listened to it but became increasingly frustrated by their attempts to be avant-garde, which really came across to me as just being smug and overconfident in their ability, trying to be oh-so-clever and, in my opinion, failing miserably.
Even looking at the track titles you can see pretention: you'd think they were French or Italian or something, with the titles all seemingly in a foreign language --- “Umari”. “Carnivalium”. “Siddhapur”. --- but they're American. Now that doesn't of course preclude them from using foreign-language tracks on their album, but virtually every track here has some weird title, and added to the overblown description above and the (frankly baseless and unsupported) claim about their debut, it leads me to believe that 19 ADD should possibly be called 19 ASS, as they clearly have their heads up there.
So let's go through it track by track, shall we, and see if I'm over, or understating my impression here. Opener “Siddhapur” is what becomes typical of 19 ADD: just under one minute of, well, nothing really. Electronic sounds, effects and what sounds like a cat, then we're into the first “musical” track, “Diadem”, which to be fair isn't too bad. Guitar mostly with some decent drumming, but generally going nowhere for nearly four minutes, then “Spoim” (where do they get these words from?) is, well, pretty much a continuation of the previous track, with hard guitar, cracking drums and no real idea of where the tune is going, as far as I can see.
Thankfully, “Patan” is only forty seconds long (wish the others were too!) and is just a pile of sound samples put together alongside a piano melody of the simplest kind, then “First world paine” breaks out the guitars again, and while I can't fault the playing it seems to be so confused, too expressionist, too experimental and with no direction or point at all. Also, as I mentioned 19 ADD seem to shy away from normal English words to title their tracks; although “Diadem” is a real word, and there are one or two others, here they can't say “First world pain”: they have to add an extra “e”, presumably to make it look mysterious or intellectual, both points on which they fail. They do the same on the next one. I just don't see the point, unless they really are that pretentious that they think it matters.
Maybe I'm just not cut out for “experimental post-metal”, as Progarchives.com describes their music, but I've heard bands do this much, much better. And So I Watch You From Afar have it down pat, and Ki's mates, Pg. Lost also do it well, but here it just seems to be all over the place, almost like listening to a very extended jam session, and any moment you expect them to kick into the
real music. It almost happens on “Sailing blinde”, when they rack off a decent jazz style metal melody with some nice introspective guitar, but then it changes halfway through and I just get confused. More sound samples that just seem to bear no relationship to the music, and then we're into a confused mess of sound and well, just noise really as the song tumbles towards its conclusion.
The only thing I can say about “Slomosexual” is that at least it's a funny title! The longest track on the album (gods preserve us!), it runs for a staggering eight and a half minutes, and is pure torture to me. Guitars whine, growl, pound and savage all through the track, but nothing comes together, as I've begun to realise is the major problem with this band. Lots of ideas, some good, but shockingly badly executed, almost as if they think people will listen to anything. Perhaps they're the ultimate poseur band: if they get famous (stranger things have happened, though not many: that horse becoming pope, for one) then everyone will listen to them and pretend they like them, when in fact all that's here is, to be brutally honest, pretentious bull**** masquerading as proper music.
I mean, a whole minute of this is just one held chord and a noise that sounds like a machine, a helicopter, a fan, something just running. Then it stops completely, and an admittedly better guitar melody take over, which is in fact probably the most musical thing on the album, but by now there's only about a minute and a half to go to the end. At least “Umari” is only fifty-six seconds long, and it's more stupid sounds and effects, then “Tendre Crotch Playe” is another hard guitar piece, sounds a least a little rocky and with something of an idea in there somewhere, “Danta” is just over a minute of sound samples, mostly one half of a telephone conversation underneath a synth babble; extremely annoying, and “Carnivalium” is mostly a jazz/funk piece with again ideas all over the place but no real cohesion. I'd have to say something this band are sorely lacking is discipline. If they could put their ideas together better perhaps they might come up with something decent, but as it is it's just fire off riffs, pound the drums and mash it all together with no concern about how it will all sound.
It sounds, generally, terrible.
More industrial noises in “Jamhuri”, another short little less-than-a-minute track, then the second-longest track, just a few seconds over five minutes, is “Saudade”, but it's a retreading of everything that's gone before, bar the samples and noises: I really would find it hard to separate one of these tracks from the others and identify one. More pointless noises, effects and ambient samples in “Khapan” and we finally (and in my case, gratefully) end on “Bikharni”, with what sounds like sitar, more samples, voices, effects, and the last minute is basically just a roaring synth effect and some notes thrown in.
Man, am I glad that's over! Sure, some of you will think this is “ground-breaking”, or maybe “innovative” or perhaps just “****ing cool!” but I don't. It's not my kind of music but even then, I'm prepared to accept when it isn't, but is still recognisably good. I can't see any good in this album at all. It just angers and frustrates me when I play it, and once I've completed this review I'll be hitting the “delete” key on its folder and getting rid of it forever, just in case I accidentally include it in any future playlist. I don't want to hear it. Not ever again. The, to me, lack of not musicianship, but thought and structure in this album is made even worse by the grandiose claims the band make on their website, and since that quote is not attributed to anyone I have to assume these are their own words. And self-praise is, after all, no praise.
19 ADD have a new album released last year. I'm thinking carefully as to whether I give them another chance and see if they can get any more cohesive and actually write something I can listen to, or not. I do find myself wondering if the ADD in their name is to be taken literally, as they really don't seem to be able to concentrate on one idea for long. On their website, should you want it, you can download their albums for “whatever price you want to pay”. Personally, even free would be too much a price for me: they'd have to pay me to download this.
No, if this particular plague ship is spotted anywhere near my home port, I'll be replying with a salvo of cannon: let them take their diseased excuse for music somewhere else!
TRACKLISTING
1. Siddhapur
2. Diadem
3. Spoim
4. Patan
5. First world paine
6. Sailing blinde
7. Slomosexual
8. Umari
9. Tendre crotch playe
10. Danta
11. Carnivalium
12. Jamhuri
13. Saudade
14. Khapan
15. Bikari