S.U.S.A.R.

Entertaining dark, moody, and subtly threatening instrumental music from this Polish group which, although an enjoyable debut, is very much of the genre, and suffers somewhat from its redundancy.

Fans of Tool, and especially Riverside will eat SUSAR up. The instrumental compositions are a good combination of slow, creepy builds with inevitable explosions of crunchy riffs. Adamczyk's bass lays down a big, fat, tuned-down foundation (which couldn't possibly imitate Tool's Justin Chancellor any more) while the two guitar players spend their time playing with distortion and effects. Their playing is undeniably good, but gets repetitive early on in the album. We're sometimes given some acoustic or purely atmospheric playing, but for the most part the listener should expect a non-stop chug of crunch/feedback. Drumming is quite good. The standout sound, however, is Jablonska's violin, which carries the rare melody and provides much of the album's tension and desperate feeling.

In an album which is mostly redundant-- and derivative-- post-metal crunch, this violin sound is a unique voice, and is liable to be the one thing listeners find themselves enjoying most, since the other players are content to play what is essentially the same pattern for 50 minutes. The inclusion of the harp is a nice touch as well, but isn't prevalent often enough to for it to feel truly integrated. Duda's vocals are passable, but mostly useless, and only show how much more a clone of Riverside Indukti is.

For fans of this sound, SUSAR holds up nicely; its mood and energy are first-rate. Yet, its repetitiveness and formulaic approach doesn't keep pace with the leaders in the genre. Worth investigating.

Songwriting: 3 Instrumental Performances: 4 Lyrics/Vocals: 2 Style/Emotion/Replay: 3