EXODUSARABESQUE

Here is an album with a lot of varying ingredient poured into the mix, and with varying results. It seems more like one fellow fooling around in his studio and hitting upon some really juicy musical ideas, but few things seem developed. There is certainly an element of creativity here, but I challenge someone to find much lasting worth to this album.

"Metafizzler" Strange, layered vocals open the album. Although they create a pleasant melody, they are accompanied by a variety of awful noises.

"Wisely Wasted" This piece blends bizarre noises imitating a "world music" approach, accompanied by acoustic guitar, which is the best aspect. It has fuzzy dual lead and muffled vocals. Sputtering electronic noises make up the middle.

"Company Freak" This consists of stammering electronic percussion and synthesizer flows. A violin-like lead surfaces, offering the piece direction. The synthesizer solo is the highlight for me, and the final moments are excellent.

"Ragadivinus" This dark piece has both violin and sitar-like sounds, yet also involves distorted electronic sounds and creative acoustic guitar bits.

"Lil'xmoke" Various electronic noises bled together to make a soft track with vocals that sound more muffled than those on "Spirit of the Water" by Camel.

"Nanomod" More stammering electronic drums underlie a rather bland piece, one which sounds like what came before, just not nearly as good.

"Slip" This is a lazy, almost Hawaiian piece at time, but has plenty of astringent, atonal electronic wails to make it tough to listen to.

"Zweitracht" Here is a piece that sounds very similar to The Mars Volta's more acoustic works, as it has both acoustic guitar and electronic experimentation (think of "The Widow")- pretty good, really.

"Cypherbets" This piece is a mishmash of sounds, and although mostly coherent, never develops- instead it completely fizzles out.

"Elief" Yet another mushy track, this has some pleasant occurrences, but is overall rather boring.

"Street Acid" An oriental flavor takes over, but this piece still maintains those R&B and hip-hop beats.

"The Tragedian" Light bass, percussion and Mellotron make for a lovely work.

"Exodusarabesque" The vocals from the first track return on this final item. However, it soon becomes the heaviest track on the piece, not because of distorted guitars, but because of heavy electronic drumming and layers of instrumentation. The result is a noisy mess though, unlike the somewhat enjoyable first track- by far the worst thing on the album (and unfortunately, the longest).