CRYPTOMNESIA OF HIDDEN ART

A piano piece with a lot of Russian flavor and a sound strangely distorted is the very dark introduction to this Senmuth's album. After 8 years and about 100 albums released Senmuth has decided to pay more attention to the composition and "Pseudoreminescentia" is a very good track also as melody.

"Precambrian" is more in line with the old industrial metal of the first albums, with the inevitable ethnic interlude, but there is a different attention to the sounds: the distorsion kit on the guitar seems to have been improved and even if the melody contains several pitch- jumps it's not disconnected as sometimes happened in the past. Heavy and dark, with a very intriguing choice of sounds.

"Meridian Shift" is another very heavy track on which Senmuth can show some guitar skill, even if the guitar is never too much in foreground, but the percussive part is what thist track is built around. A section of dreamy sounds takes the place usually occupied by the indo- ethnic interludes.

"Parallaxanium" is opened by a "pizzicato" and a sound similar to an oboe. It's probably the first classical contamination that I hear from Senmuth. Later the track acquires an oriental taste of Central Asian steppes.

"Neolith" is a guitar-based track. Lots of percussion and the usual heavy sounds. There's also what seems to be a real drum-kit. It would be the first time in a Senmuth album who usually have drones. The melody is quite good even if it's not the most relevant element. For the first time I think to hear an echo of Mike Oldfield in a Senmuth's album.

"Correlation" has an electronic intro "disturbed" by a heavuly distorted guitar chord, then enters an alternance of dreamy ethereal sounds and heavy guitars. In the albums of this 2011 Senmuth seems to have rediscovered the industrial metal of his beginnings.

The last track is the longest. 12:30 minutes opened by a keyboard's soundscape with "pizzicato" and bells, the only "ambient" moment of the album. Who knows Senmuth enough can expect the usual very heavy and noisy explosion of distorted guitar or distorted voice, both elements which seems to have disappeared from this discography. It takes more than half of the song to become more "rhithmic", the distorted guitar enters its riff at minute 7:10. Unfortunately it lacks a bit of melody, otherwise it could have been a sort of epic.

This is another of the many 3-stars albums of Senmuth. Good as almost any other to start exploring the project and with interesting moments for the "aficionados".