WE LOVE YOU ALL

I was completely blow away by Psykup and their 2008 release We Love You All upon my first encounter with the two. The sound was very challenging, often bordering on the Avant-garde approach. Still, it maintained a clear Tech Metal style and only incorporated other influences to enhance the music.

The album opener Color Me Blood Red will certainly give you a good teaser of the things to come with its fast paced intro and every twist and turn that follows. It was compositions like this one that gave such a promising start to my exploration of the band's music. Unfortunately I never really followed up on this promising start and pretty much abandoned We Love You All all together after another 3-4 spins. It's not that I suddenly began feeling indifferent to Psykup, but rather that I the compositions didn't follow up on the promising growth potential that I originally assumed that they would have. This is after all a six track album with most compositions reaching beyond the 8-minute mark.

Listening to these lengthy performances is somewhat of a love and hate affair for me, since I clearly enjoy portions of each of these compositions, still it does become a roller coaster ride in terms of quality throughout the individual tracks. My Toy, My Satan is actually the only track that I feel to be completely solid all throughout it's entire length. There is a clear feeling of progression from point A to B which I happen to lack on the remaining five performances. My plan of hopefully finding this thread of continuity began to fade over time and is the main reason of why I parted ways with this album as early as I did.

If you ask me whether I would recommend We Love You All then the answer will definitely be yes! This is a very interesting album well worth any Progressive Metal fan's attention. There are no bad tracks here, just a few minor bumps throughout the individual compositions which might be a bit less satisfying.

***** star songs: My Toy, My Satan (10:16)

**** star songs: Color Me Blood Red (9:40) Birdy (8:23) The Choice Of Modern Men (4:27) Retroaction (11:23) Here Come The Waves (10:34)