AUDIO NOIR

Bossk are a post metal band from my area in Kent. I only live about a mile away from their home town, Ashford, and I've even seen their drummer Nick Corney about town a few times. Well, they are a very interesting band, interesting enough for me, a very unlikely post metal fan (not even much of a fan, either), to like their music.

So, their debut opens with the instrumental "The Reverie". It begins very quietly, just some soft guitar chords and synths. It gets a bit louder when the drums come in, but really it doesn't change much; just a very relaxing, calm piece of music. Only towards the end are you reminded this is a metal band at work: harsh, loud guitar and heavy drums end the track. Other than that, you wouldn't guess.

"The Reverie" flows seamlessly into "Heliopause", opening with similar heavy guitar/drums. The lyrics are screamed unintelligibly over the noise, almost confirming they are a thumping metal band rather than ambient rock. It's like this the whole way through, until it ends, and the next track succeeds it.

The next track being another instrumental - "Relancer". It is more similar to "The Reverie" in that the music is soft and relaxing, it steadily builds up, and there is very little change until five minutes through. Then it breaks down and a different riff is pursued, which also builds up, but much faster. Then it breaks down all over again, and the next song, "Kobe", continues the album.

"Kobe" is not much different in structure, relaxing up to about four minutes through when the drums start banging and the singer starts screaming. Hard to describe this song, but it's pretty fun, and the finale makes it my second favourite track on the album.

After the banging and crashing of "Kobe", "Atom Smasher" promises to continue the trend. Odd time signatures, experimental riffing, unpredictable stops/starts, growled vocals... you guessed, my number one favourite on the album.

"Atom Smasher" bangs on for a full eight minutes. The next track, "Nadir", is predictably quiet, opening with some lovely piano chords. No vocals, just a calm piano dominated ostinato. Drums come in at the end, but it is still not loud, calm to the end.

With "Nadir" ending, "The Reverie II" opens with a drum machine, soon followed up by soft guitar. It becomes much heavier at about two minutes through, and continues to build up until the end, containing a loud, uproarious finale.

For my conclusion, I present my personal two le grande requirements for a five star album:

1. The songs must all be excellent.

2. It must work brilliantly as an album.

Both of them are nearly met, yet both have imperfections. Not all the songs are excellent, some only mediocre, and this is because little change occurs in some of the songs, which makes it a bit boring. For requirement two, the album works in that all the songs flow into each other perfectly. It's just what I noted before - it's a bit boring after a while, and it might you fall asleep. The combined effect of this takes two stars off for me, otherwise it's a good album - very good, since I gave it an average rating and I'm not even a post metal fan.

So it's three stars. End of another review.