Forum Member Album Reviews

[Mondo Bungle]

Obsolescence - There's some really nice sounding noisy-ish electronics beneath the the prominent melodies that make me think this is gonna feature more drone and experimental type stuff throughout the album. I really like it as an intro and in general, and still a good meshing of accessible sounds with harsher ones.

Existing as a Silent Film - More straightforward melodious electro stuff. It's decent but doesn't capture as "full" a sound as I might enjoy, although it works well as a shorter and happy little jaunt.

Nailed Down - The sample is pretty cool, and then a real thick wash of music comes in. It's an awesome sounding drone, real wavey and warm. The outro is another drone (of dronier proportions) and very pleasantly atmospheric.

Ataxia - I thought the intro to this track was amazing. It went into more atmospheric and melodic synth stuff like we've heard before and I don't take anything away from it because it still sounded nice, but I'm a really big fan of this track's intro. It had a -gazey quality in it's drenching of distortion and reverb and all that. The track picked up some more great synth filling around 1:39 to the end.

Happy Madman - A short and happy sounding, kinda psych-pop track. There's a distorted guitar-sounding track that comes in to lead us out of the track, and I think it added a good bit of something different to the album. It was borderline heavy.

Last Daze - The intro is solid, but the distorted drones return for a second after a spoken sample. He captures a great sound that I think could be something huge. The drones are very warm, fuzzy, and comfortable, but as said before, I think they lose a little bit of the magic with a "small" sound.

Paradox Nights - It seems like the distortion is becoming more and more prominent as the album moves on. This one wasn't as memorable as some others here, but I haven't heard anything yet that I didn't enjoy.

Brink - This is probably a highlight of the album. There's a lot of different and cool melodies going on throughout, and it's pretty dynamic in that. All the different sounds of different tracks work great together and create a wonderful fusion of bright, colorful sounds and harsher notes.


If We Could Levitate - This has some more really amazing sounding drone stuff coming it around a minute and a half that I kinda wish lasted longer. The next bit is alright but nothing stellar, although closer to the end another, lower melody came in that caught my attention, just before fading out.

Savior Signals - After the opening speech, the music that comes in feels a bit darker than the rest of the album. I think this is another highlight here. A lot of stuff on the album combined twinkly synths with more distorted sounds, and here the latter is displayed more prominently, at least until a cleaner sounding outro, which worked well with the whole track.

Fixated - This is my favorite track. It's just some great atmospheric piano that resonates well with me, that soon is covered in a thick drone, yet the piano remains prominent and audible. The melody shifts in mood a little bit as that drone takes over, and as it fades, a really nice and flourishing piano outro is left.

Rising Time - Another less memorable track for me, but same case as I said before, I still enjoy the sound. The whole album has a lot of similar ideas but this track seems particularly "samey". It's a nice sound though so it doesn't really lose it's charm.

When Our Winter Ends - The intro is nice, and the spoken track is cool in the context of the music (as they all have been), but I would have preferred to have the music take us out on it's own, like maybe extend the outro just a little bit after the sample ends. That's just me though, it still worked out well I think. It was less climactic an ending than I might have hoped.


I think this project has a lot of nice ideas, some I'd like to hear expanded on further (the drone elements) and some that seem a little bit one dimensional after listening for a bit, but it's all executed well enough. I think I preferred the last album though.

Sorry if my review isn't that awesome, I'm kind of not that into being alive at the moment.

[Tristan_Geoff]

^^^

Sorry you feel that way bro, best of luck. You can talk to me about it if you want.

[YorkeDaddy]

No your review was awesome, I love it thank you

I didn't know **** was going so rough dude, I'm sorry for pressuring you to finish it

[Tristan_Geoff]

Sorry again dude, I'm so busy with school stuff I keep forgetting. Remind me Friday and I'll get right on it.

[Key]

Yorke, im giving your album a listen tomorrow. Expect a review to come shortly after.

[YorkeDaddy]

Originally Posted by Ki

Yorke, im giving your album a listen tomorrow. Expect a review to come shortly after.

I just got hard

[Key]

Daydream Society - Daze End

This review is one that I've been eager to do for a couple weeks, but haven't had the chance to sit down and finally do it. This album is made by YorkeDaddy, and my god, just wait until you hear what I have to say about it. I don't do my albums track by track, so I apologize if that's the format you were looking for.

This album is fantastic. When I started listening to it, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, as the first track Obsolescence left a weird feeling in my stomach, but it wasn't bad in any way. As the album continued to play, I became more and more fond of the sound I was hearing. It's got a really gentle and relaxing feel to it, while also adding in the occasional electric riff to set the bar even higher than the album has reached on it's own. I saw Mondo mention that this album has some drone elements in it, and although i'm not too familiar with drone as a genre, I can see where he was going with that. It's definitely got the mixture of drone, and easy listening all wrapped into 13 separate tracks. I mention that it has 13 tracks mostly because I wish the album was longer. I can see myself listening to this album when i'm reading a book, or doing something that doesn't require me to really focus my mind on anything, because not only is the music good, it sets an atmosphere that allows your mind to feel comfortable but still have that attention span to do something else while the music plays in the background.

I think I enjoy this music more than most other member albums i've listening to because I'm a pretty huge fan of post-rock in general, and I feel that this album uses that formula quite nicely. I apologize if labeling this as post-rock is offensive, but I don't mean it in an offensive way. It just has that feel surrounding it that I like to hear when I listen to a post-rock album.

Track wise, each one is better than the last one, and with albums that you hear from people that aren't in a label, you'd expect each track to feel like it's on it's own and doesn't have any sort of direction. This album however (along with a lot of the albums made my members here) has really captured that ability to make each track flow into the next very naturally while at the same time, making each track it's own. The album doesn't feel overwhelming and the track lengths of each are perfect. You don't feel like you're pushing yourself to listen to each track. I was listening to the album, and before I knew it, the album was over. And of course, I had to listen to it again. I mean that in the sense that I didn't feel the need to skip any tracks, and it was just a nice natural listening experience that not a lot of music can bring these days.

The production quality of this album is also worth mentioning, because my god, it's fantastic. You can hear each instrument clearly, and nothing sounds grainy or too loud or over the top, everything fits together nicely to create a unique yet somewhat familiar sound that really compliments itself. I don't need to say much more on it.

I do want to mention that some of the songs do remind me of the Terraria soundtrack. I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but it's something I noticed right away. And it's definitely not a bad thing as that soundtrack is fantastic.

My final verdict for this album is that it is absolutely fantastic. I've never listened to Daydream Society before, but now I know what i'm going to listen to when new music is released, because this is undoubtedly a great find, and one I may even move into my mp3 player to listen to more.

[YorkeDaddy]

<3<3<3 im so happy you loved it Ki. If you want more in a similar style I've got several other Daydream Society albums you'd enjoy. Fervor, Avulsion, For Now, and Deconstruct are all ones I think you'd really like as well

[Frownland]

Daydream Society - Daze End

It's alright.

[Plainview]

Daze End

As you know, I’m a fan of your stuff thus far, so this is exciting.


The first track has a real Brian Eno vibe to my ear, with that crunchy distorted synth and plodding melody. Could fit on Another Green World pretty happily. Quite hopeful sounding mixed with melancholy. I like that rising pad that takes over midway. The whole track manages to be experimental and slightly unsettling whilst still sound upbeat, which isn’t an easy thing to achieve. Damn, this is really cool. It all sounds fractured, like it’s about to fall apart any minute. The cracked melodies make me think of Arthur Russell.


Another upbeat start to track 2. I like the fact you seem to have embraced percussion more, I think it adds another layer to this stuff, but you fit it into the ambient framework. The melody gets a little more dissonant and then resolves, and we get the guitar sounding strings coming in, which are neat. Nice production, like the layers coming in and tickling the eardrums, quite calming. I feel like this is an electronic equivalent of Post Rock track. I kind of wish that string sound was real guitar though. Great stereo effect towards the end as the synths bounce around.


Oooh, and a bit of sound collage, also dig this kind of stuff. The voice sounds familiar but can’t place it. Ah, Steven Fry, right? Nice manipulation, interesting stuff. Love the electronic sound here, like a wave rolling along. Great job balancing calmness, and the wild, untamed sound of the synth at this part. Then everything slows down and our boy Stevie drifts back in. Soothing but depressing in equal measure, nice juxtaposition


Ataxia starts with another sweet sounding synth. Sounds good with the arpeggio, and those rising and falling chords compliment it well


Love that distorted choppy guitar in Happy Madman, very refreshing change of pace to the earlier stuff. That’s really nice, could last longer imo


More distortedness mixed with a xylophone sounding instrument, and more spoken word parts. This is hypnotic honestly, very lovely and profound. A bit like Dead Flag Blues by Godspeed, but slightly more cheery if that’s the right word (it’s not). Then some killer sea of distortion drowning out the track


And some piano! Well I never, what a treat. Things then turn wild, all those conflicting melodies overlapping into one big mass. Sort of like Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, but electro


Brink has a bit of a trance sound to it, a little bit of a House fuelled sound. That rhythm guitar part underneath really fleshes things out and gives the track some punch and momentum.


If We Could Levitate definitely has a Shoegaze vibe, although to be fair a lot of the album does. Shoegaze with synths instead of guitars though. Definitely an ethereal quality to this one, in keeping with the name


The spoken word stuff in Saviour Signals is hella dark. Captivating though. This stuff adds real narrative and ties everything together, great device and fitting with your music. Great guitar-esque sound spazzing out in this, I can dig that


And this piano in Fixated is cool as ****. Lot of resonance to it. Is that you playing? It’s awesome either way. Emotional but not cheesy. A bit like that Aphex track on Syro with the piano (I forget its name). Again, the realness of the instrumentation here is a welcome change of pace and sound. Nice palette throughout the whole album actually. And that distortion is pretty gut-punching! But warm and smooth at the same time. The way everything soars as it reaches a crescendo is bliss. Man this might be my favourite


The synth in Rising Time sounds a bit like a Harpsichord (which is good, underrated instrument). I can imagine this on a game soundtrack actually, which again is a compliment, upbeat and stimulating, great music to listen to while engaged in some work or creative writing, I reckon


And the final track! Starts with a baroque style string sound to it, great layering as usual. Lovely sizzle to that high end synth part. This is a pretty sensory experience, though that can be said to the whole album. There’s something a bit new age about it a bit… but in a good way. I think I could meditate to this. And the guy quoted Shakespeare, holy **** that’s cool. This is a lovely ending, tranquil as ****. Love the backing parts here, great end to the journey. Man this ending is just spot on really


So… as you can probably tell, I really really liked it. Definitely your best album so far. The use of spoken word pieces really brings out a lot of emotion and narrative structure, which arguably your albums were lacking before. Really does feel like a journey. I may well actually meditate to this album soon, I’ll let you know how that goes. I think your mastery of balance, musically and emotionally, and your integration of upbeat, light sounds, and darker melodies and distortion, is really utilised well here. The little percussive and rhythmic elements were a step in the right direction too. I enjoyed it immensely dude.


A couple of notes, because you probably want a bit of constructiveness too, so I’ll say this:
A lot of the tracks accentuate the high end, as in, everything really sizzles with those swathes of synth and distorted guitar; and while that sounds very cool and pretty, I think your missing out in some of the dynamic range of the song. It’s not easy to pull off with ambient stuff, but there are whole registers of sound that you’re missing out. Trying using lower sounds and bass instruments, perhaps, to give the music more scope. Could add a lot to some of the tracks.


Overall, though, this was a very strong release and I’m happy to have heard it. Definitely going to listen to it some more. Ace/10