Review Summary: A figment of mesmerizing imagination, trapped in a haunting shell of perplexing beauty.
I already find myself slipping away, sliding away from the strings of reality, and into something much denser then the sun. It’s hard to pinpoint coherent thoughts of what realistic qualities remain of the way I used to think and act, but it sure as hell doesn’t make much sense now. There is no point between the boundaries of ambient feelings the music presents, just a surreal mixture of emotion and sound. Haas’s In Vain is something much darker then the night, but maybe even brighter than a cloudless day.
There is no way to fully describe the way I have listened to it and I can’t explain the way each sound works off of each other without being countered by my own train of thought. In Vain is simply so vast and remarkable that it creeps into your head like a parasite, and drives you down into a spiraling chaotic breakdown. As malevolent the music actually is, there is something about the music that plays off of one’s inner fears and manifestations. Every new listen casts the listener out into the sea, and lets them experience it for themselves without any help. There is a couple times where I start to face a string of patterns that I can actually comprehend, until being introduced to a whole new unreal feeling that I can’t quite shake. It’s like a dream that you can’t control or wake up from, and it haunts the listener every step of the way.
It can be said that In Vain sounds different to everyone who listens to it. It means something greater than what one person can say about it, but even many wouldn’t be able to plot down an actual structure to its madness. The music is able to evoke dark thoughts and memories that few pieces of music can actually do. The surreal atmosphere coupled with the fidgeting strings is perplexing, as there is no clear form or function to be established with the soundtrack. But there is a mark of beauty that In Vain leaves on the listener, one that permanently withstands the test of time. Maybe it’s just the shadow of my pleasant thoughts that cope with it, but the variable journey the piece takes me on is incredibly sublime. A journey that may seem out of this world, as it spreads the view like a disease until an unpredictable stalemate. As the cymbals crash down like buildings, and the strings lay a thick haze of smoke, the listener will feel dazed right up to the climatic end.
In Vain is a masterpiece of ambient beauty. Words of mine cannot describe what the music actually means; it needs to be experienced by your own ears to actually begin to understand what the music can actually do to you. Though poignant and absolutely hellish at times, the instrumentation is extremely unique and unsettling. It’s a piece that most people should definitely take a look into, as In Vain is a remarkable work of thought provoking music. Some may comprehend it as a bright light, while others will see it as a pitch black entity. The music speaks for itself, and you’re only left guessing.
