HUBARDO

Cacophony - "A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds". Yes, that is exactly the representative definition for this album. I don't think I could even call the majority of this album "music", as it is far more chaotic, random, and pretentious than any number of black metal bands. In fact, black metal is exactly what I thought I was hearing at first.

There is a point where avant garde becomes nothing more than nonsense. And that is my opinion of this album. Whether it be the nasty growling vocals (though there are some clean ones later in the album), the "white noise" effect where all the instruments are played so chaotically that they end up merging to form nothing at all, or also the non-collaborative nature of much of the the individual instruments, this album just becomes a complete mess of distorted guitars, crashing cymbals, and random, unremarkable violin. Looking at the list of the musical instruments used in this album is really a joy, as you feel like you are going to experience an eclectic masterpiece. In the end, all of the novel instruments are buried under noise, pure and simple. The band establishes no groove. They craft no melody. They don't even make a pleasant sound, for that matter. All of the musicians seem to be playing different songs. Noise: That is all they create.

I don't want to sound harsh, as I understand that many people love Kayo Dot. I understand that they are rather important in today's avant garde scene. More power to them. However, for my money and my ears, this is utter nonsense. I keep seeing this music called "complex". I'm not even sure that is true, honestly. It might be, but I can barely hear anything over the constant crashing of cymbals or the annoying guitars or the horrible vocals. Someone out there likes this, but it's not me.