A SOCIAL GRACE

Psychotic Waltz's debut was definitely path breaking in the realm of metal music. Striking with a pure force of Devon Graves' incredible voice merged into a genius combination of psychedelia and thrash metal. A fairly unique sound was developed on A Social Grace which is greatly reflected in the band's name - chaos all around dancing with the incredibly complex song structures. It almost seems as if a lunatic was the person behind this odd music.

However, the main reason I often come back to this album is its lyrics - clever, dark and obviously a bit chaotic. Personally, every time I listen to Psychotic Waltz or Deadsoul Tribe I feel touched just because the stories they tell seem always different than anything you witness throughout the journey around the music world. Here on A Social Grace lyrics mostly depict a pessimistic view of the world which simply becomes unbearable for the author. The doom and gloom reaches its peak on the final song Nothing where a concept of time is introduced. As most of the things mentioned before can be seen as subjective perceiving of reality which might be taken to further discussion, the last song comes to break it all. It appears as a sort of ultimate statement that underlines the absurdity of it all. Thus, A Social Grace presents an interesting perception of the world and a great concept album if you look closer.

Unfortunately, lyrics are the place where any consistency of the album ends. To be clear, the album feels heavily uneven. We have extremely powerful masterpieces like Halo of Thorns, I Remember, A Psychotic Waltz, Strange and one or two more while other sit somewhere in their shadow. But it seems like it's quite a few right? Well the fact that the album consists of thirteen songs it really doesn't. And that's one of the major problems as well. I expect from an album over one hour long to have a certain direction it goes. Otherwise its songs or sometimes whole piece become easily forgettable. A Social Grace feels like it's spinning around in circles, and these are very chaotic circles. And perhaps this 'psychotic' music is just simply not my thing as it doesn't feel cohesive enough.

To be fair, I would rather listen to the best pieces of Deadsoul Tribe than Psychotic Waltz's debut. Even though songwriting here is much more advanced and innovative. Yet still, A Social Grace is somewhat a one time obligatory listen for every person interested in metal music as it pushes the boundaries of the sound and provides succulent point of view.

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