COOKIE MONSTER

'Cookie Monster' - Misanthrofeel (2/10)

With such an intriguing name, I felt I had to go back to the music of Russian electronic project Misanthrofeel and check out the latest installment in a stream of extended plays. Featuring an exotic, eastern-styled mode much like fellow Moscovite project Senmuth, Misanthrofeel is unique because all of the instruments here are artificial, composed and arranged through the use of a PC. While the cold, almost 'old school video game' sound of the music really deters from the more emotionally resonant pieces of music, there have been a few pieces of work from this Russian one man act that have worked very well in spite of the production method. The latest installment 'Cookie Monster' however, is quite a disappointment.

With a duology of EPs (one focusing on funeral doom, the other on haunting ambient work) released earlier this year and then compiled as one entity with the 'Idle' collection, Misanthrofeel was finally showing that he could bypass alot of the sound issues that the artificial production caused, and still create music bloated with atmosphere. That being said, it becomes all the more of a wonder why Misanthrofeel has decided to take a step back in his development and make 'Cookie Monster' sound like something more along the lines of his earliest work. The music here does retain the exotic doom approach, but in a much less polished and amateurish state than the funeral doom work '6.04' turned out to be. While there is some electronic ambiance surrounding the guitar and drum soundalike tones, it does little to contribute to the music. As compositions, none of these really stand out, instead revolving around one or two light melodies over distorted guitar sludge; a formula used to death in the project's full length efforts.

'Cookie Monster' is quite a disappointment overall, especially with Misanthrofeel releasing some pretty strong stuff with '6.04' and it's ambient counterpart. I am a supporter of Misanthrofeel's music and ambition surely, but it seems like the project still needs to keep going down the route that '6.04' was taking it, instead of going back a few steps and sitting down.

I rather enjoyed Easterica. That's interesting, since (from what I have read), this musician is something of a non-musician- someone who makes music without recording anything. In this case, it's like hearing a fancy Guitar Pro file. The guitar sounds terrible, the drums sound terrible, and the compositions are only okay. Everything is largely repetitive- this is not progressive music in any sense. The drum samples lack the variance to render this a convincing project. The lack of human dynamics is the bane of this EP.

"Tea Party" This is a jam with potential marred by an overly thick sound. The drums suffer from a mechanical repetitiveness. Worst of all, there is no melody to save it, and it fades out without purpose.

"Cookie Monster" The electronic sounds offer some variety, but the composition doesn't. The guitar is still terribly muddy and the drums may as well not even be there. The beastly growl is rather cool, and so is the theme, but the track fails to maintain interest.

"13th" Again, not a bad idea here, but the sounds render the composition completely unbelievable. It is heavy, but unconvincingly so.

"Stagnation" The album closes with what could have been a promising instrumental. The potential is certainly there, but the humanity is not.