Review Summary: 23 perfect songs on one CD. Sure, it isn't one the LP's, but as a greatest hits album it is one of the best CDs ever, at least for the gothic genre.
Imaginarius still remains to be hiding under the cloak of invisibility. It’s truly saddening. These guys put a lot of effort into what they do, they make amazing music that can be soft and southing or aggressive and pounding, but it’s always catchy, and Nikki, Eric “Miss Mako”, and Elliot clearly aren’t in it for the money as they have only released two of their eight albums by a major studio and even returned back to their independently funded roots with the last two albums. Some people want to be famous but Imaginarius just wants to make good music and they will take the fame only if it comes to them. And good music they do make. You can read my review for the album Paranoia Inc I did recently and read up on that, but that album was almost perfect as it was. So imagine an entire album of Imaginarius’s best work, all of the fantastic songs without the not as fantastic but still good songs in the way. This is The Change In Me: Greatest Hits.
23 songs may be a turn off, as the album goes above the 70 minute mark, but its well worth the while. I will admit some of Imaginarius’s songs get a tad bit boring, mainly the slower ones on the first few albums, but each album has at least 3 or 4 songs that are just so catchy or so inspiring that you want to permanently bookmark the band forever. Taking those 3 or 4 songs off each album and making one big album out of it turns out to be more than amazing. This cd is the Rubber Soul of gothic electronica, the The Sound Of Perserverence of the genre, 23 heavenly songs packed onto one CD. This is, without a single damn doubt, the best greatest hits cd I’ve ever heard. No other cd has picked as many amazing songs, not a single flawless song is forgotten. It’s just flawless, flawless, flawless, 23 tracks in a row of flawlessness. I’m not really sure how to put it other than: every song on this thing is flawless. It is the pure definition of a 5/5.
Where do I start??? Female vocalist Nikki Agnor is just beautiful, both in face and voice. She sounds very similar to the girls from Evanescence and Flyleaf, and she is able to hit very high notes without any effort. She makes the band amazing. Sure, the instrumentation is good, great sometimes and even fantastic on tracks like Queen Of Hollowed Hearts, but the vocals seal the deal. Even if you don’t like the music, you still must admire her vocal range and her soft southing voice.
Again, every track is just…wow. It begins with The Devil Wears High Heals, which is very dark and gothic for sure, kinda like a 9inch Nails song, but this is just one of many faces that Imaginarius dawns. Other songs like Strip! and The Walking Dead are aggressive and fast tracks with a commandind presence driven by synth and electrons. Meanwhile, The Forgotten and Atop Blackcreek Hill have a lot of guitar and bass echo parts and sound kinda similar to something Tool or Rishloo would do. Ocean Song and Queen Of Hollowed Heartsserve as the feelgood, happy, upbeat tracks that warm your heart perfectly. I would love to do a track by track but I know this site despises those and for 23 songs that would be very repititve and boring, but each song could have a review written for it. Every song is on this cd is worthy of a multiple-paragraphed essay. It’s gorgeous stuff, and the flow never ever stops for a second. One word: catchy. Catchy riffs, catchy hooks, catchy verses, catchy everthing. I dare you to listen to Killing The Siren, The Ghost I Am, Everyone Needs A Villain, Suicide Bride, or Stay and NOT hum the song for days upon end. It’s a challenge and I dare you to accept it.
One thing I’d like to add is a note about the guitarist/piaist, a man known for two separate famous identities that you may know both. One guitar and backing vocals is Eric Dapkewicz, who you may know as the Oscar-nominated editor for a lot of Dreamwork’s animated films, like Monsters Vs Aliens, How To Train Your Dragon 1 and 2, Flushed Away, Prince Of Egypt, and most of the others, as well as the director and writer for the low-budget yet praised sci-fi horror Paradox Alice. There’s a chance you are very familiar with his work or you have no clue who he is. Meanwhile, if I say the guitarist and backing vocalist is Makodap, you might go “oh yah, I know that guy!” while others may be lost. MakoDap is a Youtube personality who makes videos about guys transforming into girls and having sex with guys immediately afterwards and loving it. Yah, pretty much all of his videos are the same, whether or not they be animated comics or live action shorts. Starts out with a guy down on his luck who turns into a girl American Werewolf In London style, so by that I mean he doesn’t just POOF into a chick, he falls in pain and begins growing big boobs and a fat butt over like a minute. Then he/she examines him/herself, says something like “ohhh I feel so good and warm” with a sly grin and runs off to immediately have sex with a friend who was just moments ago one of his bros and, of course, he/she yells “I love it!” and says she never wants to be a guy again. He’s done videos of the Powerpuff girls, Tron legacy, Alice in Wonderland, Indiana jones, freaking Spiderman and Harry Potter, even Star Wars, in which the emperor transforms a young sith officer into a hot babe with his force powers and then the sith guy has sex with Vader and later Luke Skywalker. Or just older vids like one where a creepy old janitor turns into a sexy latino chica and has anal with a sketchy biker dude, smiling and everything. If you are into that, his videos serve as very good porn without the nudity. But you know what always plays in the background of those videos? Imaginarius! He also has a very popular vlog upload series in which he defends wanting to become a 10/10 chick and why he isn’t gay or confused. So yah check out his work, either as an editor or director, or as a youtube TF’er, or as a musician. He has a buttload of backing vocals on this album so you’ll hear him a lot. In fact, the cover art of the CD cover is a snapshot from one of his TF video’s, one that involves a white dude who transforms into an Egyptian princess and then into a werewolf. The face the girl is making on the cover is a “omg this transformation feels so good” during the finalizing stages of the TF, and even the title, “The Change In Me,” gee what change are you talking about, huh Eric confusedsypants? The change you get hard to every single night when you are thinking about turning into a girl and getting banged? The cd comes with a fold out poster of a transformation too, the one you see on the cover. Yah. Thanks for forcing your idea onto us.
Other than that little detail, this album rules. Apparently, The Cure has the highest rating for a gothic electronica album with a 4.5/5. Admittedly I’ve never heard it but I think this one might compete against it fairly well. Sure, it isn’t an actual LP, but as a greatest hits cd, it towers over most of its competition.
Listen to this song, Killing The Siren, for a ballad approach of the band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxGGxQuNNqY
Listen to this song, The Devil Wears High Hills, as a sample for their more gothic or dark sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvWEypw_9oQ
Here is Ocean Song, which shows their feelgood happy attitude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCNL4D6FZXI
Finally, here is Set Me Free (Sex Slave) for their fun partygoing entertaining side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25HpaTAwgXU
Okay I realize the music videos are very cheap and kinda goofy, but what do you expect from a band that has the budget of a bottle of keyboard cleaner?
Unfortunately these are just the songs that are up on YouTube, as most of the songs on the CD can be found on iTunes or Rhapsody, although many of the life-changing tracks can be heard as the background music to several of Makodaps questioning vids, but if you just play the video in the background and turn off the computer monitor then you should be good. Or hey maybe you are into that stuff so itd be a double whammy. The band has changed a lot over the years, starting as more of a gothic band to Gorillaz style trip hop to a kind of Tool-ish progressive rock sound to even some drone or ambient and back to gothica, all of which can be heard here. The band has done pretty much everything, and at the end of the day, they can honestly say they’ve done everything. They’ve been on tour across the globe, released eight albums (two signed to a major studio), and are still trucking today. I know a lot of people hated my Myrimin review because people thought it was pretty bad music, but I knew that would be hit or miss, the quality is brutal and the drum sound is funny, I know. But I seriously can not understand why people would hate this. There just isn’t a sinlge flaw here. Check it out, especially if youre into gothic, electronica, prog rock, or trip-hop. I swear you will not be disappointed.
