SUMMARIUM SYMPHONY

This album is extremely hard to pin down. The best I can get is classical music with vague rock influences (some tracks do feature a drum kit and guitars). If you've ever listened to Montreal-area post-rock (like Bell Orchestre or later works from A Silver Mt. Zion), you'll know what to expect. But all pigeonholing aside, the album itself is great. While the compositions sometimes seem to be wandering or lost in their own great sound, this is thankfully the exception to the rule. Most of the pieces are focused instrumental expressions with classical instruments, which frequently turn out to be enjoyable listens. It's difficult to pin down individual tracks as being standout, but the overall experience from the album is certainly enjoyable and far from a taxing listen. I'd highly suggest a listen. And, it's free, so I don't see why you wouldn't try it.

'Summarium Symphony' - Senmuth (5/10)

First introduced to me by another listener as being Senmuth's stab at Genesis-prog, I was quite excited to give this album a good listen. Typically, anytime that the man behind the music of this vast project decides to do something other than his trademark industrial metal, it's bound to be a refreshing and interesting journey to take. With Senmuth's take at orchestral classical music, Senmuth proves he has no shortage of talent and skill at arranging instruments together and creating complex compositions. However, the music itself seems to lack a sense of overall direction, and real dynamic.

First off, all of the instruments here (barring a little bit of guitar work thrown in here and there) is artificial, meaning they are pre-sampled sounds from a computer. While Senmuth himself cannot be held to blame for not having the funds necessary to hire a full orchestra, it does evidently affect the strength of the music. Without the musical touches only a real musician can make, this sounds more like an orchestral composition demo than anything else.

That being said, it is still possible to craft a compositional masterpiece, even if the delivery is off. However, despite the album's labelling as being 'neoclassical,' the music still suffers from many of the same composition flaws that many of the other Senmuth works have had in the past. There are still clear 'rhythm' sections which play chords or repeat ideas, while a 'lead' plays overtop. It just feels like the writing of the album could be transposed to any of Senmuth's various styles, and isn't actually 'classical' at all, barring the sound samples used.

It's flaws aside however, Senmuth does provide an interesting listen with 'Summarium Symphony.' While the album is meant to be orchestral in nature, many other styles are mixed in, to provide a more unique experience. Electronica thrives here amongst the classical-sounding sounds. 'Summarium Symphony' is certainly not a symphony by any measure; moreso a collection of songs that are mixed in an orchestral sound. While the album is only a partial success and moreso interesting for the fact that Senmuth is experimenting around with things, a greater fan than I of symphonic music should find more to appreciate here.

This very unusual excursion of Senmuth into symphonic music has benn reall a surprise. This demonstrates the high musical skill of this eclectic an prolific artist. If looking at the enormous amoutn of albums released, an average of one album every two weeks since 2004, one could think that he has a software to automatically generate songs. With this album it's clear that he is more skilled than his computers: he has composed symphonic music and unfortunately his hardware is not evoluted enough. The result is great music, dark as usual, but thanks to the absence of electronic drumming and distorted voice it sounds as a fully symphonic album. "Attenuate Auspicium", just to mention a track, could have been written by Prokov'ev. I have waited for a long time before finding a Senmuth album that I can rate 4 stars, but now it's the third consecutive time.

For lovers of symphonic music. Also the few tracks which have drums, In those cases he's closer to a soundtrack's style. This is the side of Senmuth that I prefer. When he puts metal apart and lets his music flow outside of any specific standard, even his own standard.

If you start now with Senmuth, this album is not representative of what he's used to do. He's very recognisable also here, but it's not his usual techno-industrial-metal. That's why I rate it 4 stars.