Review Summary: A solid hour of having your head spin.
Click click, bzzzzz, bass kick, bass kick, cymbal, click, bzzz.
Huge Chrome Peach begins with 2 seconds of silence, and then, almost as a forecast for the rest of the album, it bursts through with a complex, non-repeating drums beat with alien clicks, sounds, and strangely placed snare hits and bass. The vibraphone in the back is repeating as the drums disappear for a bit of dynamics.
Aaron Funk has done something extraordinary on this album: he has made the drums the lead instrument. This is astounding just because it is done in such a way where they almost have melody to them. The memorable melodies little sections of drum leads that give the song a thick layer of intensity. This isn’t to say that
Aaron has forgotten about other instruments.
At the beginning of
Bonivital he has a great sounding little synth solo before the beastly, spastic drum arrives to destroy and mush everything into this chaotic mess… but, well, that’s what makes this so wonderful to listen to! All the other instruments used on the album are just textures to accentuate the top layer of percussion and synthed clicks and buzzes.
The highlight of the album is
Vida. The calmest song on the album it actually has the melodies and other textures shine through as much as the drums. It is a time to relax and recuperate, since the rest of the album is so fast and driving it is hard to fully absorb.
Aaron has made a truly astounding album, but the problem is: how can you listen to it all? A solid hour of ultra fast drums and dissonant buzzes that makes you head spin. The flaws of this album have to be that it is too long. When absorbing it song-by-song it is easy to appreciate the time and effort put into each song. However, when listening to the whole album, it just seems as if it is repetitive. But, at this point, the album may only be half finished.
As the album charges forward, it gets to the point where it should stop. The noise/techno/breakcore experiment
Destroy Glass Castles is interesting, but overall annoying and too long, clocking in at over 7 minutes. Again there are the crazy drums which keep coming, but then, another extremely beautiful gem:
Aaron
Aaron Funk picked a great song to name after himself seeing as it has some of the most beautiful melodies and layers to it that it melts away the rest of the album.
Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding appears to be perfect and reconciled for its length when
Aaron appears, finally being punctuated with
Bezcitny.
Venetian Snares or
Aaron Funk has created an musical opus that is only tarnished by it’s length.
Pros:
Oh God, the drums!
Synth sections
Melody Sections
Aaron
Vida
The end of the album (last 2 tracks) is perfectly executed
1:37 – 3:28 of
Coke Ajax
Cons:
An hour long
Album isn’t as enjoyable as it’s songs
Destroy Glass Castles
Rating
4.2/5
