AMPUTECHTURE

This album is possibly the most creative and intuitive meld of music ever to be composed. There isn't much else to say, but that this album is amazing. For the average mainstream listener, it will be a lot to digest, yes - But even so, after proper digestion (5-10 listens), this album is far more accessable than the previous "Frances the Mute" (one of my favorite albums). To make things easier, I'll run through the track listing.

1. Vicarious Atonement - This song is beautiful. A simple bassline lays down the law, and a small guitar feature fades into Cedric's first words of the album, which are chilling. Over a minute or two, this builds until Cedric sounds like he starts to almost, well, break down. Silence...keyboards come in softly, and then Cedric starts the lyrics "Don't let these hands sharpen your eyes", as the bassline repeats and things start moving a little faster. The sax starts to wail in the background, and then - almost randomly -

2. Tetragrammaton - The entrance is an explosion of sound, and Jon goes mad on the drums. As stated earlier, this song is Jon's highlight of the album. An odd choice of note structure here makes for an interesting guitar overlay, as one guitar plays over the phrase, then another, and on the final phrase, they meld together oddly and yet quite in place. Theres a small section where the guitar is soloing completely, quite soft, in 3/4 (mimicked to sound like 6/8 in places by the clever use of speaker interpolation). The verse begins, and Cedric sounds beatiful. Juan sets a nice bassline for the guitar to follow, as Jon steadily groes more furious through the phrase. It repeats, back to the calm, and builds again - this time into the chorus. The chorus on this song is my favorite chorus ever written. It's very syncapated and quite upbeat, and the keyboard is very prominent. Cedric wails in octaves unheard of. Throughout the rest of the song, there are other great moments as well, but you'd probably rather me get on to the next songs. Just as a preview, there is a slow section of ambience that randomly bursts into a guitar solo over the chorus riff, a slower section featuring some saxophone, and an outro reminiscent to it's first couple minutes.

3. Vermicide - this song, while not the album's single, is very radio friendly. It's quite reminiscent to At The Drive-In's material, without the screaming. The chorus "Bear Them, Serveants", is a great line, albite a bit cheesey. It has a nice 5-bar phrase bridge.

4. Meccamputechture - At first, I honestly didn't like this song, but now I'd have to say it is one of my favorites on the album. It opens up with Cedric...Rapping? Yes. Cedric raps the introduction, and it actually is pretty sweet. Juan lays down an absolutely juicy bassline for which the rest of the song is based. The chorus of this song is actually pretty pop-ish in many ways, and the lyrics aren't much like the crazy metophoric language used in other choruses (Everyone stares all the time, persuasion deflowers your sympathy...) A nice outro with the saxophone, and fades into -

5. Asilos Magdelana - this song is completely acoustic, except for the beginning and the end. Cedric's vocals here are the best on the album, in my opinion. Instead of the high, double layered lyrics used on many of the tracks on this album, Cedric sings at an all time low - pitch wise, that is. His voice is quite calming when in this register. The song slowly turns more gruesome towards the end as cedric sounds like he's turning into a demon...and the guitar finally fades to the techno beginning of -

6.Viscera Eyes - this song has a nice repetitive riff that's great to dance to. There isn't too much to say about it, except that it's chorus is out of this world, and the lyrics to it are VERY catchy. The second half of the song features Juan laying down a nice latin groove, still in 4/4 and yet utterly deceiving timewise.

7. Day of the Baphomets - 12/10. This song is my favorite of the album, just above Tetragrammaton. It opens up with a bass feature, and the rythem is reminiscent to Tool. The beat groes and guitar becomes more prominent, and then theres a sudden explosion of sounds as all hell seems to come flying from the music. Saxophone wails into the first verse, with lyrics almost exactly the same as the early "Plauge Upon your Hissing." The song changes keys many times, and something I found of interest is this song mimics all the previous track's key signatures, playing them all through in reverse. Quite interesting! The song closes on an interesting note after a great bongo performance and cedric singing the highest I've ever heard him, almost rediculously high. This song actually has a "silly" vibe to it, but still conjures images of the earth exploding.

8. El Ciervo Vulnerado - At first I didn't give this song much chance, skipping it to move on to Cygnus (the next song on my playlist). The first time I really listened to it was when I was falling alseep to the album. This song is scary. It really is. It's so freaking chilling, especially the backwards voices towards the end. The sitars and effects mash together and climax and randomly and suddenly - End. That's the end of Amputechture. A masterpiece.

And props to Omar, who did a fantastic job of producing.

This album has grown on me more and more with each listen. I'd ask anybody whos interested in Prog Rock to pick this up when it comes out September 12th. Even if you aren't interested in this type of music, give it a chance. Chances are, your first time it'll be too much to bring in, but over time it will definetly grow on you.