RA DHI

'Ra Dhi' - Senmuth (4/10)

Before going into the music itself, I must make note of the particularly notable album artwork here. While Senmuth generally maintains quite a high quality of artwork for his many dozens of releases, I haven't seen one so far that screams 'epic' quite like this one. After all, how many times is someone going to see a man riding a cow through space in their lifetime?!

Visual aspect aside, 'Ra Dhi' is a pretty typical album for Senmuth at this stage of his music. To sum it up as simply as possible, it is an instrumental mixture of electronic, rock, industrial, and world music. While there is plenty of promise for such a unique combination, 'Ra Dhi' does not appear to completely realize the potential. While it certainly has more worth and success than some of the other things Senmuth has done in this style, the sense that the music here has been done and recycled by Senmuth many times before really detracts from what could have been a more engaging listen.

At it's core, the big issue here is not with the execution (as some might expect from a non- professional artist) but the composition itself. While Senmuth has learned to use the means at his disposal with great tact and proficiency, many of the tracks here on 'Ra Dhi' just don't feel like they go anywhere really profound. I always hoped that once Senmuth shed his 'industrial dance metal' style, compositions would get better, but it feels as if some much needed hooks and energy that were in some of the earlier metal releases aren't part of the mix anymore.

In terms of it's identity as a standalone album relative to the rest of Senmuth's work, I believe this is the first time Senmuth ever uses the didgeridoo (for those who don't know, an Austrailian aboriginal instrument) sound in his music, although he uses it too much where he happens to take it out, and it can get annoying at parts. The best music here is certainly where Senmuth takes a 'trance electronic' approach, as well as a laid back acoustic ditty called 'Rain Far Away From My Land,' which is simple and beautiful, and turns out to be the only track here that really works as a start-to-finish song.

'Ra Dhi' might be worth checking out for a few interesting tracks, and a generally well executed presentation, although the album appears to miss it's mark on the whole.There is evidence here that the man is indeed a very talented musician, but unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be enough attention to creating diverse, memorable and moving compositions to recommend it too much.

After the unusual Morning Depth with all these acoustic and classic guitars, Senmuth is back to his normal fusion of ethnic music and insustrial metal. He doesn't sing too much, so the usual noise caused by his distortion kit is not present, but the sound ant the rhythms are closer to his first works. There are long ethnic parts, mainly indian, on this album, but the metal element is back after a number of albums on the newage side of this one man band.

The problem with this album is that it appears like an involution. "Ah Na", "Eternafrost" and Cybershamanizm" are more or less the same track, and of a kind that's easy to find on his early albums.

There are some good moments, specially the two "Travel Dub" and "Samarthye". This last sounds like "Rammstein". "Rain From My Land" is a very nice acoustic/classical guitar based instrumental (an Ovation?). It's only that it's like if Senmuth hadn't decided which kind of album it should have been.

It's a 2.5 star album. I round it to three because it's downloadable for free, so spending less than 1 hour in listening to it is not a bad idea.