LEITMOTIF

This was the last Dredg album I bought, and after hearing the excellence of El Cielo, Dredg jumped into my top 10 favorite bands easily. Therefore, when I bought this, I naturally had high expectations. Did they meet my expectations? No, mostly because the 20 minute song isn't much of a song, but otherwise, this a good, solid album, especially for a debut.

This debut shows, as another review said, shows a younger, more aggressive Dredg still looking for that perfect sound. Indeed this album, shows the band fiddling with many different styles in a rather unrefined, rough way, but still succeeding to varying degrees. All the songs are still short, still send you on a trip, use many different sounds and styles, and this is a concept album. All that's different is that this album is much more aggressive, much less refined, and overall lacks that magic touch that was in El Cielo. It is, however, by no means a bad album. In fact, it's a very good album.

Most of the album, is, as I said, very aggressive and very emotional. There are two songs, though, that have more of the feel felt throughout El Cielo, and those are Lechium and Traversing The Arctic Cold, We Search For The Spirit of Yuta. Lechium resembles Of The Room, although longer and more desperate in tone. At around 3:45 the song has a great quiet moment of soft crooning from Gavin. Then the guitar comes in and the song starts bulding, and BOOM! It explodes. Gavin starts screaming slightly, then the main refrain, then it's over. Great powerful song. Traversing... is a little more experimental, and has a cool guitar part throughout. There are no words, just ooohs and aaahs softly in the background, and overall, this song is kinda hard to explain. The last two minutes, are unfortunately noise.

The three other non-Movement songs are all very aggressive. The most aggressive song, and definitely the most aggressive song Dredg has ever done is Penguins in the Desert (they have some strange obsession with this reference to penguins in the desert). Gavin starts out full out screaming, then songs a kinda rough melody. The song chills out for a bit, then goes heavy again and finishes like that.

The opener, which is actually Symbol Song, not Movement 1, is heavy and repetitive and quite catchy. It starts out with noice then a cool guitar theme and good drumming, and builds off that. Yatahaze is a real good song in the vein of Lechium, except more straight forward.

As for the movements, they're all pretty standard and just serve as transitions. Most likely, you won't even notice it's a different song. RR is pretty cool, actually, as is Lyndon, but the other ones, transitions. They're not filler though at all.

Overall, a very solid album. I like it more than Catch Without Arms, but less than El Cielo. I'll give it a solid 4/5. Good stuff, dredg.