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Rating: Sinuous dance of electric crackles... dull thuds of sticks on tom toms... a weary dirge...
Thus begins the eighth album from the Portland (USA) band, which effortlessly combines solid and driving rhythms with an exhilarating blend of frustrated, intense, ecstatic voices that effectively adorn the dreamy and decadent atmosphere of this "This Machine". Moments of pure Alternative with a California aftertaste (Enjoy Yourself) are replaced by others where the pop imprint beguiles the band's inherently rock nature (The Autumn Carnival), sketching soft and melancholic plots, and then moving on to ingenious sound experiments, with robotic and onomatopoeic vocalizations (Alternative Power to the People). This festival of still life also presents two joyful and forced bursts of light (I Am Free and Seti VS the Wow! Signal), amidst the remaining nine carpets of dry leaves fallen from the depressed shrubs that point with their branches to the leaden autumn slowly devouring the memory of a warm summer.
Is there a better time to grasp all this?
Federico "Dragonstar" Passarella.
Tracklist and Videos
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