"Their post-punk death disco sound might be the current trend, but this Toronto quintet has it nailed with the help of sexy singer Nirmala Basnayake, whose gleefully unpretentious vogue-ish dance moves inspired the crowd and equally dapper guitarist Scott Kaija, whose energetic bounce didn’t distract him from him locking grooves with co-rhythm guitarist Colwyn Llewellyn-Thomas. The only time they looked uncomfortable was when glaring white lights invaded their blood-red backdrop. This is music better bathed in mystery." -Michael Barclay [url]www.exclaim.ca[/url]
I had only heard one song when I bought this 22 minute 37 second 7 song EP but after I was done listening to it I knew that they were one of my favourite bands. They have done something that few bands can do, create a mood to their sound without having the songs sound the same. The band has two guitar players and a bass player and they, unlike many other bands, have them doing something completely different all the time.
...
This is not really a song, more of an introduction. It is just strange noises being made on keyboards with some guitar feed-back for a short 40 seconds.. It seems to be there only to start the next song which it does very well. I won't rate it because it is like I said, and introduction.
History
With the fading of ... it starts with just the bass drum and then comes in one of the best bass lines i have heard in a long time. Then the rhythm guitar and the coolest lead riff i have possibly ever heard. Then it goes into a bridge that is completely different to the rest of the song but still fits. It was the first single of the record and had a very strange video. A solid 5/5.
Silent Seven
The song starts right away and just has a very strange feeling, very hard to describe. Again it has a good bass line and lead riff. Another 5/5.
Sleep Over It
This song is very dance-able but still very cool and has a great riff and the lyrics to the chorus would be easy to have an audience sing along with. Again, an awesome walking bassline. 4.5/5
Bruised Broken Beaten
To me, at least, this is a rock song but still, it fits very well. Like all the songs on this record, its very catchy, probably because the chorus has just one lyric, "Somehow". One word but very affective. A 4.5/5.
Disco Blackout
A good way to describe Controller.Controller would be "cool" and this song definately fits that. Their sound is kind of disco but only in the way that you can see how it is influenced by disco. It does not sound like disco unless you pick it apart, like this song. It is just a great song. Another 5/5.
Watch
This starts kind of like the start of the album in the way that the very end of "Disco Blackout" goes into a "..." sounding thing that fades out and starts with just a bass drum but on this song the rhythm guitar starts, not the bass. After that you can tell it is not "History" but a completely different sounding song. This song is very unusual and at first I did not like it but it grew on me and now I cant get enough of it. This song is a 4.5/5.
The only complaint I have about this CD is that it is only 7 songs (6 really). But the new Controller.Controller record is going to be a full-length one, though I’m not sure when it comes out.
