Sunday 6 December 2009

TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE DISASTER - COLLAPSE (Cd Review)


01.Blue Skies
02.Collapse
03.Duggah
04.0-7156-3561-1
05.Sunday
06.Seaweed
07.Winchester Pump
08.Tokyo Rose
09.Monolith
10.Twenty

Adam Paul (Guitar)
Alex Rainbow (Drums)
Andrew Vernon (Guitar)
Tomasz Granica (Bass)

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster take their name from a bridge in america which
dramatically collapsed in masive high winds in november 1940 that was captured on film.
The band were formed in 2008 and wanted to combine a shared love of progressive metal
and instrumental post-rock, to form complex and dynamic soundscapes drawing on a myriad
of influences including Isis, Russian Circles and Red Sparowes.

Now instrumental albums are not favourite unless they are electronic like Tangerine Dream so i shall hit play and see whats on offer.

So 'Blue Skies' starts us off it has a few samples of speech thrown in and is a good opener but it sounds like a typical album intro.

The title track and again its okay, certainly when the heavier guitar and drums kick in, but the use of samples was missed here and a brief sample from Robert Oppenheimer was pointless when some news samples from the original broadcasts about the bridge would be better, on the other hand if collapse is about society, then this proves the problem of music without lyrics.

Track 3 is pretty heavy and the title 'Duggah' refers to a modern generic word for anything.Possibley the best piece on the album, it has mood and a good riff.

0-7156-3561-1 is actually the ISBN code for the book Singularity Is Near by Ray
Kurzweil about the idea of human and machine essentially becoming one.However this is a missed oppertunity, this is a very quiet 45 second waste of time, that could have been so much more.

At 10 minutes 'Sunday' should have had much more in it, but its too rambling and laid back, throw in something else and you have a good tune.

'Seaweed' has a jazzy feel to it and then has a few moments with some inspired guitar riffs and some pretty cool drum work.

As for 'Winchester Pump', well its about a minute long and is very avant - garde with muffled speech and weird sounds.

'Tokyo Rose' was the nick name given to japanese propaganda broadcasts during the second world war, and i have to say again surely a missed oppertunity here to make a point, if not with vocals then some inspired sound bites?

Some great basswork throughout 'Monolith' holds it together.

Finally the 13 minute epic 'Twenty', this is a slow building song, starting with whispering over the melody it reminds me of Pink Floyd and even some of Velvet Underground's early work.Sure its a simple riff but it has this hypnotic quality about it and you cant help but be drawn in to it, even when the backing gets heavier that riff remains.This is my favourite track on the album.

Rating 6/10

For fans of : Isis, Jesu, Pink Floyd, Manuel Göttsching, Lloyd Langton Group

STU

1 comment:

Kali said...

Christ almighty, call yourself a reviewer? This is a poorly-worded deconstruction and self-glorification based on how YOU would have made this album.
I've listened to this album (on lastfm, music lovers! Go make up your own minds: www.last.fm/music/Tacoma+Narrows+Bridge+Disaster) and, while everyone's of course entitled to their own opinion, I have to point out that if you write "they've missed an opportunity/missed the point" about so many tracks, perhaps it's time to consider whether you yourself have in fact missed the point of this album.
"Collapse" creates a particular mood in the mind of the listener - someone who's actually trying to appreciate musical expression, not trying to be a pseudo-producer - it's a thought-provoking album that should be listened to as a package, not picked to pieces and rewritten.
Worst. Review. Ever.