Friday, April 3, 2009

Review: Alien Soundtrack/Sunken Landscapes split CD



Those of you who know me personally, know that my musical tastes range from the easily accessible to the downright questionable and everything in between. I have never been one to shy away from challenging myself to listening to something that casual listeners would find "just noise". I don't always "get" what the band is trying to achieve but I understand that they have a point of view that they are trying to put across. Whether they achieve it is another subject entirely. Many times artists just have to cut the chord.

The realm of psychedelia in music is one such area that I have never fully understood. I've never tried anything harder good ole' THC and to an extent have never partaken in its complimentary attributes while experiencing some form of psychedelia. One friend told me he never understood The Doors until he smoked pot while listening to them. So, in that perspective, you can understand where I'm coming from when I say that I wished I was high when I was listening to this split CD.

Not that the music is bad or anything I just think I would "get" what they are going for much easier while high. While sober you try to make sense of things and put things in order. You try to catalog all the things you experience into neat little groupings in order for you to make the proper decision of whether or not you like something.

So in order to make sense of the music in my sober state, I tried to think of the closest thing that would be similar to what I had to critique; a noise band. From a completely noise perspective it is definitely something that makes the grade. Yet there comes a point when you're listening to stuff like this where you start to feel drained. Once again, not because it's bad, but because you're concentrated on what is actually being played so intently that you feel tired. (Or maybe that's just the introvert in me) You also get to a point where halfway through a CD by bands like Alien Soundtracks and Sunken Landscapes you start to question if what you're listening to has broken down into random music fuck arounds. At times, it's difficult to say.

I will say this; at the risk of sounding like a total pretentious, noise band music elitist, asshole, I see what they're going for. Notice that I didn't say "I get it" because I don't. I was able to witness a live set of Alien Soundtracks as they played the final song on this split, Scattered Wreckage. So there is obviously structure to what seems like madness since I was able to distinguish the song that they played that night amongst the songs on this CD. Maybe one day I'll take that leap and try to understand it, if you catch my drift. It's definitely a great effort on both bands part. But once again, it's not you, it's me.

Alien Soundtracks/Sunken Landscapes - Split CD
Available through Nihil Underground

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