Let the Neon Shine on My Spilt Milk (ISYMIYSMY W/O)
Written: May 07 '05 (Updated May 07 '05)
Product Rating:
Pros: creates a very clear, definite mood with its densely layered arrangements
Cons: not enough musical variety - moody, gloomy monotony
The Bottom Line: Moody goth rock still doesn't grab me in the same way as the sugary power pop I normally listen to, but it's nice, nevertheless, to be exposed to something new.
DrFaustus's Full Review: Neon Nights Electric Lives by The Static Age
Ah, the sounds that mark the return of springtime. The crack of the Louisville Slugger on opening day. The gentle chirp of the first robin. The refreshing tattoo of an April rainstorm. The tinkling chimes of the ice cream man's maiden voyage. And the barking of Epinions music writers griping "what the hell am I going to be forced to review now?"
Yeah, it's time for our yearly voyage outside of our comfort zones, time for MattA75's fifth annual I'll-Show-You-Mine-If-You-Show-Me-Yours write-off. The premise is awfully simple: Matt pairs up the interested writers randomly, and it's our job to pick something that our partner would normally not listen to, in hopes of broadening his or her musical horizons. I've participated twice before, and this time around, it's PacManY2J's turn to cross sabers with my musical tastes.
I was eager to see how Matt would react to the sweet, sugary, energetic power pop I often listen to, but I wasn't too sure what to expect from him. Liberal doses of metal, punk, and hip-hop mark his reviews, and I can't say that I'm all that familiar with such genres. I've never been able to get in to them all that much, but of the choices he offered me, I ended up going with Neon Nights, Electric Lives by The Static Age, an album he described as "dark synth rock." Not exactly something I could sink my teeth into easily, but I figured I was up for the challenge.
I knew if I could just find some angle I could latch onto with the album, I'd be set for the task, and fortunately, I found just such an angle as soon as I spun up the disk the first time. Right away, the album's opener, Vertigo, comes staggering out in a lopsided 5/4 rhythm. I've always been a sucker for an uneven time signature, and Vertigo's rhythms sucked me in and gave me something familiar to hold on to as I delved into the album's dark synth territory. And the music? Heavy, dark, and gothic in tone. Minor key synthesizer riffs blend with an every so-slightly jangly guitar line, reverb heavy bass rhythms, and splashy cymbals that cascade over the arrangements. In many ways, Vertigo sounds like a Cure song with Robert Smiths distinct vocals replaced by something more gravely and rasping. While that might sound like a step down for some listeners, Smith's overly melodramatic caterwauling is probably the only thing that has kept me from enjoying The Cure, so Vertigo strikes just the right note.
From there, The Static Age take the album through song after song of brooding, pensive gothic rock. Amphibian adds in some string arrangements into the melancholy, angsty mix, while songs like Ghosts and It Never Seems to Last blend in a hint of new wave electronica as they raise the dramatic synthesizer lines to the front of the mix.
That feeling of The Cure, Depeche Mode, Queensryche, and The Smiths stays consistent through the whole album, a little too consistent. So many of the songs feel like carbon copies of one another with nothing to set them apart or to really distinguish the end of one track from the start of the next. Granted, such a sameness running through the album isn't necessarily enough to sink the album, but unfortunately, the vocals aren't enough to fall back on. Each song features the same throaty, gravely whisper that puts mood and feeling ahead of content and meaning. With the vocals mixed as far down in the arrangement as they are, they're too hard to follow closely enough to get much meaning out of the lyrics. They feel almost like an afterthought.
Not that there isn't at least some variety on Neon Nights, Electric Lives. As I mentioned before, there's the unusual time signature of Vertigo that first drew me in. There's also Saltsick, which adds in some major key marimba into the instrumentation, giving us a different twist on the standard gothic rock formula. And the end of the album features two remixed tracks, Airplanes and Packistan, that have been remixed by different producers to give the songs more of an industrial/metal edge to them. Such variety isn't enough, though, to give the album the spark needed to really show development and growth over the course of the album.
In terms of capturing a certain mood, Neon Nights Electric Lives is successful. It's the kind of music I'd expect to hear during a montage scene in some gritty, modern, vampire hunter sci-fi movie. It's far too dark and gloomy of a mood, though, to really capture my fancy, and its emotional range doesn't stretch out far enough. Perhaps if I were more into the goth rock scene of bands like Souxie and the Banshees or The Smiths or The Cure, I'd have a stronger frame of reference, but for me the album ends up as nothing more than background music for emotions I just can't relate to all that well.
Still, I'm grateful to Matt for opening me up to something new. For those occasional moments when I slip into a gloomy, dark mood and I'm not ready to lift my spirits quite yet, I've got something to play in the background to keep me going. But, as intense as the arrangements may get at times, I just can't see Neon Nights, Electric Lives as anything more than just background music.
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