let's just skip the apologies and get straight to the music. i was up at 6am last saturday since i had to take my girlfriend to the bus station. since i was up at this hour, i figured i had nothing better to do than flip through the music channels and watch music videos, since 6am on a saturday is about the only time you can find music videos on mtv or vh1 these days. these guys were picked as one of the new artists to watch on mtv, with their vj repeatedly calling them the "Next Big Thing (tm)". i have to say that i agree with mtv.
fnx was playing their single, "lazy eye", pretty regularly for a few weeks there, and the song struck me immediately. after listening to the whole album, i can say that without a doubt "lazy eye" is the gem of the disc - this song strikes a balance between the spacey, noisy guitars and the driving vocals that other tracks do not. in most of the songs, the vocalist (who's voice is pretty weak) is too persistent and doesn't let the music come through at all. notable exceptions (and the finest tracks on the cd) are "melatonin" and "future foe scenarios", in addition to "lazy eye".
the real excitement is that this band is bringing spacey grunge back - carnavas derives its sound almost completely from gish, for example. serious progress has also been made from the earlier EP (entitled pikul) on the sound side. the guitar is more interesting and the atmospheric noise elements are just awesome.
carnavas is not without flaws but it shows some serious promise. if the silversun pickups take as big a step forward on their next album as they did on this one from their EP, well... we might have something.
7.5/10
fnx was playing their single, "lazy eye", pretty regularly for a few weeks there, and the song struck me immediately. after listening to the whole album, i can say that without a doubt "lazy eye" is the gem of the disc - this song strikes a balance between the spacey, noisy guitars and the driving vocals that other tracks do not. in most of the songs, the vocalist (who's voice is pretty weak) is too persistent and doesn't let the music come through at all. notable exceptions (and the finest tracks on the cd) are "melatonin" and "future foe scenarios", in addition to "lazy eye".
the real excitement is that this band is bringing spacey grunge back - carnavas derives its sound almost completely from gish, for example. serious progress has also been made from the earlier EP (entitled pikul) on the sound side. the guitar is more interesting and the atmospheric noise elements are just awesome.
carnavas is not without flaws but it shows some serious promise. if the silversun pickups take as big a step forward on their next album as they did on this one from their EP, well... we might have something.
7.5/10