IDMEN

I cannot believe the bad reviews this album as received and also cannot understand why this masterpiece is not in the top 100 for this year, should be number 1. This their second album is a great improvement on SUSAR, itself a great debut. True it's not for the faint hearted and anyone stuck in the seventies is not going to like this but if you are open minded and like inventive music with bite, you may like to give this a listen.

The big influence from the past is clearly King Crimson Larks Tongues/ Starless/ Red, include some Tool and then mix in some RIO and you will have an idea what to expect, expect the unexpected.

Straight from the start this is one of the most evil sounding albums i've heard in my forty- eight years of life. Sansara goes straight for the throat and doesn't let go, heavy guitar chords ala Tool (themselves influenced by King Crimson) with some great violin ala David Cross, odd time signitures, stop start rhythm and extremely powerful. Tusan Homichi Tuvota starts slowly, wierdly, wonderfully with acoustic instruments, the violin plays a lovely melody and slowly increases it's power with wonderful vocals from Seepytimes Nils Frykdahl who gets crazier as the track progresses to it's climax, my second favourite on the album. A short but lovely interlude with soundscapes, trumpet and percussion then comes ...and who's the God now? with vocals by Macief Taff. The drums start a powerful tribal rhythm with the vocals slowly coming in with a repeated lyric as the guitars get louder and slowly everything starts to jell together. This is standard metal fare compared to the other tracks on this album and my least favourite track but although I say that it as nice touches here and there with some acoustic rhythm guitars and some nice great violin. Indukted is their Red, heavy guitar with a pounding stop start beat, this is the track that sounds mostly like King Crimson ala 2000. So much so that if this was on a new Crimson album with Fripp and Belew trading noise I for one would be very happy. Aemaet continues in this vain with heavy guitars and a scratching violin, in fact they could have called this Indukted II. Nemesis Voices starts with some strange noices over a repeated guitar motif and violin then the vocals of Michael Luginbuehi from Prisma come in and we're with Tool again. Like the last vocal track this is standard rock music, the violin is strong as on all the tracks and this keeps it above standard rock music. The last track Ninth Wave is my favourite on the album. It starts with seagulls, acoustic instruments and Trumpet. Over it's period of 11.32 minutes it builds from spanish sounding trumpet to the heavy chords and violin. The Trumpet here played by Robert Majewski reminds me of Mark Isham on some David Sylvian songs but the music is far more powerful. Then it slows down again with wonderful violin and again Trumpet before building to its exciting climax. The Drums on this track are exceptional.

This is the best album since Opeth released Watershed last year and unless Porcupine Tree's new album is the best thing they have done I cannot see anyone else coming close, not even Riverside's new album is this good and although I love Maudlin of the Well's part the second I think this one just edges it for me.