God Lives Underwater is grouped somewhere in the alt rock, indie and techno genres. While listening to their music you can definitely hear the obvious influence Depeche Mode have had on David Reilly and John Turzo's music.
The album slowly swirls into the track Intro which gives the feeling like you are caught in a sandstorm with a funky drumbeat. I would have really like to see what they could have done with this track if they had fleshed it out. From listening to the first track it gives you a pretty solid idea of where the album is going, ambient samples, turntable effects and synths.
Rearrange picks up nicely with a good upbeat bass synth line and somewhat sparse drumming. Reilly's singing is high above the mix in certain songs and placed nicely in between in others.
From Your Mouth is the track that introduced me to this band and was the only song from GLU I ever heard on the radio. This song features a catchy beat, a water drenched synth line and funky bass line. This is a good song to introduce you to this album.
GLU go through the album with this same sort of style but they do switch things up to keep the music interesting.
Can't Come Down features some nice simple acoustic guitar strumming strewn over effects, synths and a relaxing beat.
Behavior Modification and The Rush is Loud are two stand out tracks here. The first is almost as catchy as From Your Mouth and the latter is an in depth look at the recording process from an artist. Reilly's vocals on The Rush is Loud may bother some people but after a few listens it's likely to be over looked because of the good lyrics.
The album changes pace from upbeat to slow and relaxed throughout. Fans of Depeche Mode and Stabbing Westward should be able to get into this very easily considering the similarities in the musical style. One of the few things I dislike about this album is how the vocals are mixed too high in some songs and the last track is a nice song but then morphs into 25+ mins of noise. Overall it's somewhat of a tech rock record with some hip-hop and industrial influences thrown in to keep things interesting.
3.8/5
