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Review Summary: Potential is a dangerous word. I am not even gonna pretend like I know anything in detail about Leicester, UK based musician messFX. This is his 8th full length album, he has been putting out music since 2008 and his work can be loosely placed into the giant hall that is all of electronic music. That is literally where my knowledge ends. But this shouldn't be a problem, right? A good album should be able to be enjoyed without context as much as when you know his whole catalogue.
What messFX brings to the table on this album is basically the definition of a mixed bag. From the atmospheric, rhythmic pulsing of opener Helsinki, the rock influenced riffs mixed with rave-ish drums on Gutless to multiple covers of more popular songs and even an Adagio for Strings, he switches things up almost every song. And to his credit, he does it well. Really well, to be honest. There is not a single instance of atmospheric whiplash on the album, and considering the sheer amount of music on here, this is one hell of an achievement. The tracks flow into each other fluidly and without much friction, building a nocturnal, almost otherworldy vibe. This album feels like a train-ride at night, driving through a lot of small illuminated cities, who all have their own little quirks.
The production itself is good, sometimes lacking in depth, like the first half on the weirdly stiff a-Tone, sometimes sounding a bit too much like presets, like half of the instrumentation on the AWOLNATION-cover Sail, but it's never distracting from the content of the music. Generally, you notice that there is someone at work here who has been doing this for quite some time now.
But all these compliments aside, why does this only get a 3?
This is kinda difficult for me to say, but, there are absolutely no highlights on the whole album. The whole experience just enters your ears and leaves them after 56 minutes, with nothing getting stuck in your head. This might be a good characteristic on, say, an avant-garde, ambient or lowercase album. But on a house-ish, big beat-ish or dubstep-ish album, this is a real problem, because it makes it that much harder to come back to the project. After all, the atmosphere might be very good, but if I can't remember a single song on it's own, without quick-checking it, I'm not as thrilled to relisten to the whole project. And the parts that did stick out to me, weren't for good reasons. The album could have lived without a song like „Sing Along“, because the rapping just isn't any good, and the production on that particular track is perhaps the most lacklustre.
messFX is obviously a very ambitious musician with a wide array of influences, but he just hasn't found his own sound yet. He should experiment a bit more, throw his influences in a blender and work a bit on creating memorable moments, while working out his very last production-kinks. And if he then fuses it with his obvious talent for atmosphere and track-placing, I'm sure he would release an amazing album. I think that alone should make you watch what he does next. So if you excuse me, there is a newer E.P. of his that I gotta check out.
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Album Rating: 3.0
I owed this one to MercuryToHell. I hope you are happy with it.^^
Stream: https://messfx.bandcamp.com/album/without-shame
Any constructive criticism welcome. Has been a while since I wrote a review.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
Just listened to this and it's decent. Some sounds are a bit too 'preset' for me. Pretty sure I've actually got the synth preset in "Oceanic Reflection". The production is decent overall but could do with a bit more depth, seems like something is missing in the mids to me. One thing I will say is the flow of the album is all over the shop and that may have been on intention but for me it makes for quite a jarring listening experience. It's kinda like the album doesn't know what it wants to be.
All in all I enjoyed it, there's some great individual tracks here, Alpine is definitely a highlight but they're spread too far and few between. Also for an 8th album it still sounds to me like you're trying to find your sound.
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"The whole experience just enters your ears and leaves it after 56 minutes"
Should be 'leaves them' unless you're speaking about people with only one ear.
"While this might be a good characteristic on, say, an avant-garde, ambient or lowercase album, on a house-ish, big beat-ish, dubstep-ish album, this is a real problem, because it makes it that much harder to come back to it."
This sentence is awkward. Not sure if there's comma splicing here, because you've got a number of them. Also, you write 'it' three times in the final stanza. I'd retry this sentence entirely in a different light, because it's not reading too smoothly at the moment.
"...and the production on that particular one is perhaps the most lackluster."
I'm fairly certain it's spelt 'lacklustre.' May wanna double check that one.
"If he would experiment a bit more, throw his influences in a blender and work a bit on creating memorable moments, while working out his very last production-kinks, and then fuse it with his obvious talent for atmosphere and track-placing, I'm sure he would release an amazing album."
I'd cut that sentence into two as it makes up most of your concluding paragraph. Bit of a run on, but that's just me.
Overall good review! I listened to this and didn't get much from it. Felt bad for MercurytoHell cuz he wanted some constructive criticism or at least some exposure. I wasn't diggin' though from what I heard.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Fixed everything, thank you!
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Good review. I'll give it a spin. I enjoy hearing user-made projects. Where can I hear this? Is there a Bandcamp page or something?
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Added a link to my first comment.^^ Have fun.^^
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Already shouted you, but thankyou so much for giving this the time and effort for a review - album number 9 has definitely been more of a tortured process, but now that I feel like I have a springboard and criticisms beyond my own ideas, I feel like I can truly make a stab at something more unique.
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Felt bad for MercurytoHell cuz he wanted some constructive criticism or at least some exposure. I wasn't diggin' though from what I heard.
Dude, this is beyond the level of constructive feedback I could ever have hoped for. If you don't feel it, you don't feel it - god knows even I don't half of the time.
Negative feedback is arguably better than positive, as long as it isn't along the lines of 'this blows, suk dik fagit LOLOLOLOL'!
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All in all I enjoyed it, there's some great individual tracks here, Alpine is definitely a highlight but they're spread too far and few between.
Agreed, but I'm super happy Alpine is getting some love, it's definitely one of my favourites!
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Thanks man! I fixed what you pointed out as well.^^
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Nearly finished the first track for the new record, excluding one or two tracks that might make it from the E.P depending on if they fit - I want to have a definite flow for this one.
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my sister asked me why there was a minecraft person in the middle of the street.
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A valid question. Not one I can answer but a valid question nonetheless!
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Just a quickie for anyone that's listened to the record!
Naturally it's my voice on 'Gutless', 'Sail', 'Sleepless' + 'Street Spirit' and I was just wondering if the vocal element worked - I currently have 3 very strong (in my opinion) warm instrumental numbers for the new album so I was thinking of taking the Battles route and dropping vocals entirely...
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Well, your singing on Gutless is by far the best. If you would sing like that on the songs, and the new songs you have match that tone, it shouldn't be too big of a problem. Otherwise you should maybe go with the instrumental route. You don't have a bad voice, it's just not that well suited for the music you are making most of the time.
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I'm not the biggest songwriter, let alone writing them to match my voice - I think if a song or two comes up for it then I will but I won't bend over backwards to make it work, because I don't think my voice is my strongest weapon!
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