FAKE

Originally meant to be a tribute soundtrack to the 1926 silent film 'The Phantom of the Opera', Outopsya could not get the rights to feature the film directly in their work, so after a few modifications, the full-length 'Fake' was born. To its credit, 'Fake' would have made for an interesting score to any spooky film. Independently however, Outopsya's second album is an incoherent mess of different styles. There is the occasional glimmer of brilliance, but at a film's length, 'Fake' can become something of a tough egg to crack.

Over two discs' length, Outopsya mish-mash a range of different sounds and styles, occasionally even throwing proper songwriting out the window in order to do so. Among these are The Mars Volta-type psychedelia, electronic noise, industrial, and even a metal riff here and there. The collaboration of Mazzucchi and Vianini is certainly experimental, and this ambition with sound and texture will challenge even a seasoned prog listener. In short spurts, this wanton sonic turbulence is academically interesting, but Outopsya fails on most occasions to bring these interesting idea to fruition. Save for the album's 'epic' highlight 'Lillies', tracks are over long before these ideas are ever fleshed out.

Among the one minute spurts of noise, echo, and strange vocoder vocals, 'Lillies' stands out as being the sole point on 'Fake' where the band takes their penchant for sound experiments and backs it up with an interesting composition. Even here, the band skirts from immediate melody or warm ideas, but the fifteen minute structure allows them to take their industrial soundscape and build it up into something that I may find myself wanting to return to. 'Lillies' indicates to me that Outopsya are very capable of creating some incredible music. Sadly, most of what is heard on 'Fake' feels like a work-in-progress; a demo that has yet to fulfill its potential. It will be interesting to see where Outopsya goes with this very eclectic collection of sounds on their next album. If they manage to find some effective adhesive to merge this mess together, I don't doubt that something great will come out of it.

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