TYCHOZORENTE

Do I perhaps throw around praise for Omar Rodriguez Lopez's creativity and willingness to experiment with almost every new album of his I listen to? Maybe. Do I intend on stopping this any time soon? Certainly not, the man's just got too many awesome ideas floating around for me to consider that, even on his weaker albums such as this. Tychozorente isn't an album I consider to be all that great, all things considered, but it's definitely a cool attempt at another unique style, being some kind of dense, psychedelic electronic album with pop elements in the structure of the songs themselves. Everything sounds strangely lethargic and slightly slower than it should, with these abrasive, whirring electronic elements worming their way into every facet of the composition to create something that's equal parts hypnotic and garish. I really love what this is trying to do, but with that said, the bizarre approach taken is often something that's more interesting to talk about rather than actually listen to. While the lethargy can give some amazing atmosphere to certain tracks, it often works against what's being done, just feeling annoying and sluggish, especially with the blaring electronics. Ximena's vocals also don't really work here for me, with a lot of sustained notes that just end up being grating to me rather than actually evoking much of anything, at times even seeming to work against the music itself for no reason that I can discern. I really do respect ORL for yet again making something entirely off the wall, but this is definitely one of his weaker experiments to my ears.