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CD ReviewAnhedonic – “Common Placed Disease”By Marcus Pan
Anhedonic are not the tightest outfit out there, the music sometimes losing itself a bit. And its hard to tell who does what within the confines of the group. Blood & Lace give us a brooding opener with lots of high-hat hits and slow moving music with washed out whispery vocals. Lost in Grey bring in a heavier guitar structure and a bit more tightness to the make-up, linking better with the different sounds. But the vocals remain background and whispery. Chord progression is a bit predictable. Without the low level production values, we might not notice the predictability of Anhedonic’s music as much, but the combination of these makes for a killing of Anhedonic’s capabilities. Can I Sleep When I’m Dead lies on track three and uses more of a keyboard overlay with swirling chords and movements. The drums are back to the high-hat tapping, giving it a much too bright feel that is more annoying with a track like this than strong, which is what I’m guessing they were going for. The constant high-hat hits are distracting from the background slow moving ballad itself. There’s also too many breakdowns, which instead of adding to a mystery about the track it instead breaks it up too much. All tracks thus far, including the now starting C.P.D. on slot four, have begun with samples. This track then goes into an amateurish thrash attempt with heavy bass rumblings that are muddied and unclear. Vocals are muted and muddy also, adding to the tracks make-up as an amateurish rumbling and uninteresting mess. Anhedonic have a long way to go. Two CDs planned in 2006 could be improvements if they increase the production level of their work, but they also have to move away from the predictability of the chords, and tighten up quite a bit which is unusual considering there’s two of them. Mixing is very off and the volume level on Common Placed Disease itself is so low you need to up your stereo’s volume to more than half to hear everything. Contact Information: |
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Made up of Shawn May and
Chris Jones, Anhedonic do a brooding kind of goth rock and black metal. The
downfall of their Common Placed Disease release is mostly in the muddy
and unclear production and it’s a bit amateurish maybe, but since the
band’s demo release of Turning Point in 1999 they’ve dealt
with a lot of set backs that most bands haven’t. They have a high end
schedule coming in 2006 with two CDs and a DVD planned, so one can hope that
they rise above what they’ve showed us here on Common Placed
Disease to give us something a bit more mature and riveting.
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