"Read Between The Lies"
(KP001)
five / ten
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KYON "Read Between The Lies" (KP001)
five / ten |
This wasn't exactly what I'd expected it to be, although I didn't know what to expect from the offset. The collective work of one Shane Talty; he's been busy learning his trade and tinkering around with everything from samplers and drum machines to keyboards and guitars, trying to mix it all up in one big cup of unwieldy riffs and aggression. This, his debut album release, is impressively well-presented both in terms photography and design, but the music isn't rubbing me in the right places unfortunately.
The risk with the whole one-man-band scenario is that you can often come across as one of those multi-tasking street entertainers generally accompanied by a dancing monkey rather than a skilled synchronous instrumentalist. But we're dealing with something pretty incomparable here, because it's all programmed drums with sludgy guitars and industrial beepings that like to wander on and on.
The title track and album closing number 'Faceless' are the best of the bunch, but the other tracks seemed like incomplete thoughts that just got swamped with the onslaught of guitars being force-fed into the mix. My main objection with the album is that incorporating samplers, drum machines and synths should allow you to diversify the sounds being integrated, whereas this album plays it rather safe on the heavy post-rock front and sounds more like a band jamming out ideas in a smoky shed than the focused work of a producer.
It's not that Kyon isn't doing anything interesting, he is - but maybe he's just finding his sound and the next batch will be more developed and concise.
John Lillis
www.myspace.com/kyonmusic
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