Autumnblaze – The Mute Sessions
I’d not heard this band before, and I suspect this is a bit of a pet project for them. I can’t find much info on this particular record, but it appears to be acoustic version of songs from past albums or something to that effect. The CD says “Original songs you can find on ‘Bleak’ and ‘Mute Boy Sad Girl” which are albums from 2000 and 2002 from the band. I don’t have the insight to compare them to the previous works so I will simply go with what’s here. The music features acoustic melodies and minimal percussion, and cleanly sung vocals. After some fairly unpleasant vocals on the opening track “Kiss My Fear Away” the second track features a very Radiohead like lilt to the crooning that works much better in the context of the music. This only remains in part through the disc, it’s difficult to describe, he’s not doing anything blatantly bad or wrong, it just doesn’t always work for some reason. I was expecting this to be in a more Neo-Folk vein than it is. Not sure why, but given the label and such, and the general trends of the scene it seemed a logical assumption. It really isn’t that at all. It’s an acoustic “unplugged” kind of thing more than adapting it to a folky style or something. I don’t have much to say about this I guess. There are tracks that work well, and have a nice melancholy lilt to them, there are others where the dramatic effect feels forced and others still that don’t do much of anything for me. I’m sure this is the kind of release that their existing fans will appreciate much more than someone like myself who hadn’t heard a note from them before I put this in. Meh. – Scott
PROPHECY PROD.
Worm Gear 