Review Summary: If dredg wanted to pwn Tom DeLonge, they would make this.
"The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy- everything."
George Orwell’s
1984 envisions a “dystopian” society, a negative view of where Orwell thought the world was headed during his life. He wrote of a society founded on hatred and lies, delusion and secrecy. While his world epitomizes everything that could possibly go wrong with a government, some of Orwell’s predictions became eerily true, one of which being the telescreen. Of course now called a television, the telescreen worked like a high-powered security camera that saw everything and sensed emotions through face recognition technology. Through this technology the Thought Police tracked every person in Oceania and, if needed, convicted them of crimes.
Given that, it seems odd that Telescreen’s debut EP begins with “1913,” but with a little research, the concept begins to take form. Winston and Salem, North Carolina joined into the one large city in that year, Winston-Salem, the band’s hometown. A gorgeous orchestral chorale, “1913” hardly sets up the album with any sort of summarized sound, but instead establishes an air of political opinion with the vocal sample placed in the middle of the track that starts clearly, stating “No organization of men can take the place of the divine insight of youth…” After the higher voiced strings swallow the voice whole, it returns at the end, emphasizing the phrase “We’re in trouble.” The air of foreboding effectively sets the tone of the album even if the instrumental content never makes a reappearance.
For the rest of
The Solar Sea, Telescreen creates the music Tom DeLonge tried to compose with Angels and Airwaves. Spacey, atmospheric, and full of climatic anthems, the music grows, recesses, and goes everywhere in between nearly flawlessly. “Individual” serves as a perfect introduction to the band’s sound, with a well-defined verse-chorus structure that produces a climax not only through volume and intensity but through melody, as vocalist Jared Draughon (of the band Classic Case) slurs up to his highest falsetto. The instrumentalists, all remnants of Codeseven, contribute through brilliant guitar interplay and atmospherics. Like a cross between dredg and a lighter version of Thrice, the band shows their influences clearly and confidently.
The Solar Sea plays through many different styles, a remarkable, varied output of different sounds. “EM 328” grows completely differently, starting with lush keyboards but growing through a crescendo of strings into a sudden crash of guitars and, once again, high pitched, falsetto vocals. “Soft Spoken” instead starts with those strings and continues until barren guitar and vocals lightly sing overtop. Implied by the title, the song never reaches a crushing climax like most of the other songs on the EP, but still moves forward as the undercurrent becomes larger and larger throughout. Meanwhile, “Rumors” closes off the album much in the way of Muse’s “Megalomaniac”- through gigantic organ chords.
Telescreen’s debut EP appeases to the tastes of Codeseven fans and pushes forward with spacey, atmospheric rock. Joining the likes of Radiohead and Saul Williams, they created a new way of selling their album to entice potential customers. Download the EP from www.telescreenmusic.com and you will get a unique link ID that you can give to anyone else, and the money that person spends goes to your PayPal account. The band never sees the money except for the initial purchase. The marketing techniques, however, are not the point here, and this is an EP worth checking out regardless of the selling tactics.
