C'EST ÇA

Listening to this album, these amazing blends of electrostatic sounds with happy-go-lucky Indie-pop make me think that I'm listening to the next generation of where bands like MY BLOODY VALENTINE, FUNIN, STEREOLAB, MEW, KITCHENS OF DISTINCTION, or even DAVID SYLVIAN might have evolved.

1. "Avant-gardez Vous" (1:19) electrostatic weirdness. (3/5)

2. "Distance Dealer" (4:10) What if MY BLOODY VALENTINE and STEREOLAB had merged around Y2K? This might be what you'd get. AWESOME! There's definitely a little debt owed to Mark Hollis on this one, as well. A top three song. (9.5/10)

3. "Bleeding Decay" (5:37) a modern day HOLGER CZUKAY opening, only the pulsing bass and kick drum lines serve notice to a house-dance intention. 90 seconds in the music congeals into some kind of blend of early U2, Art of Noise and KITCHENS OF DISTINCTION as heavily effected vocals sing. At 3:30 a spooky immature screeching voice breaks in, turns into a kind of horn-muzzled chant before screaming once more before the guitars unleash some high octave chord tremolo strumming. Nobody's doing music like this today as far as I know. (8.75/10)

4. "Dizzy Delusions" (1:51) gorgeous seascapes provided by heavily effected guitar. Adrian Belew and Kevin Shields would be proud! (or, at least, they should be.) (5/5)

5. "Each Ether (5:07) breaks into the race straight out of the blocks with lots of fast-pounding drum kit, machine gun bass lines, and layers of guitar and electronic sheaths. The screaming Mimi of "Bleeding Decay" returns after the 1:30 mark. 30 seconds later we're caught in some kind of David Sylvian-Robert Fripp-Brian Eno time warp as all instrumentalists repeat over and over their little four-beat riff for over a minute. Around the four minute mark a more "normal" ghost voice sings--and is backed! Quite lovely! Sounds a bit like MEW and TAME IMPALA. (9.25/10)

6. "Alienage Syntropy (1:59) industrial noises from the percussion and electronics while drums play along with intermittent syncopated cymbals and snare rudiments. Kind of cool in a "The Waiting Room" kind of way. (4/5)

7. "One Hit Wonder" (6:57) weirdly hypnotic combo of electrostatica with groovy bass and disco/house drum beat (creating an awesome Kevin Moore/CHROMA KEY/NO-MAN/ANATHEMA kind of feel) until the half way point at which time a strange human voice begins to "screowl" over the music in a voice that sounds like a scratchy-throated cat from OOIOO who is probably being strangulated. The music is so awesome that it makes the weird vocal seem like an anomaly and, therefore, tolerable, even amusing. A top three song for me. (14/15)

8. "Discreet Channeling" (6:26) OPUS III sounds, MY BLOODY VALENTINE guitars, COLIN EDWIN bass, militaristic drums, CYNIC or DEATH's death metal growls (in female form), TOBY DRIVER's emotional intelligence, PETER GABRIEL creative production genius. The band really amps it up a couple notches for the final two minutes. Awesome track! I'd go to a disco just to dance to this one! (9/10)

9. "Interface Your Shattered Dreams" (5:37) opens as a KTICHENSCOCTEAUSLOWSTEREODIVELABLUSHTWINSOF DISTINCTION song with a COWBOY JUNKIES BRIAN FERRY singing lead vocals...until the death metal screams at the one minute mark force everything to fall apart into a cacophonous section of sound being sucked into a black hole, riding through the eye of the needle (the Taint), and then coming back out the other end reformed, reversed, rewinded, and reborn. With more shoegaze! Wow! Brilliant! Extraordinary! Definitely a piece of prog rock genius--on par with something from prog chameleons ULVER--and my final top three song from the album. (9.5/10)

Total Time: 39:08

Five stars; a minor masterpiece of refreshing electro-retro-shoegaze prog rock.