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Review Summary: An unbearable journey to the far side of tech. As soon as I was handed Psyopus' latest musical abortion, Odd Senses, I knew I was making a mistake. I was sure that Chris Arp was going to pull some unholy manifestation of technical riffage out of his *** that would just blow me away, but at what cost. His fretboard wizardry is simply amazing, but at the same time its really frigging annoying. So now, like every other Psyopus album, it all came down to if there was enough of said wizardry on Odd Senses to make sitting through the migraine inducing side of Chris Arp & co. worthwhile. The answer is a resounding no.
The first four tracks on Odd Senses blend together into a mess of dissonant noise. The album's opener .44 is practically unbearable. Gutteral death growls clash against Arp's disturbing pitch ***fed to hell guitar work creating a wall of noise that already has you searching through the medicine cabinet for some Advil, despite the track's 53 second run time. Medusa continues the trend of annoyance with Arp's all tech - no substance guitar schizophrenia over constantly shifting drum patterns blasting away at warp speed. The end result is what sounds like a scratched Cephalic Carnage CD looping over and over again.
Just when it seems that all hope is lost, something that is actually listenable appears in the form of X & Y. Starting with a freaky, some what jazzy clean piece that sounds like The Number Twelve Look Like You tripping balls, X & Y shifts into an all out tech-as-*** assault, back to the psuedo-jazz freak out and back again creating the very thing that the rest of Odd Senses lacks, variation. Unfortunately, Boogeyman ruins any hope of a turnaround as it is five minutes of twenty second spurts of masturbatory noise broken up by irritating soundclips of people of talking that are looped and distorted every which way and end up ruining any chance of a flow in the music. Surprisingly, Psyopus close out Odd Senses with one of the more intriguing songs in their musical grab bag. A Murder To Child is an odd mixture of Arp's technical guitar stylings and classical music. It makes me think it was inspired by a run in of Adam Fulara's Bach renditions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c46fr2EZOhQ) while on LSD. While it lacks any sort of flow and just meanders about at its own pace, A Murder To Child actually works quite well as a closer. It gives the listener a chance to regain their sanity after the dysfunctional cluster*** of Odd Senses, while still being odd enough to not feel out of place.
I'm sure that there's probably some part of the scene that's going to eat this up, but unless technicality is the sole aspect you look for in your music, Odd Senses is a painful listen. So in summation: if you dig the frantic beeping sound that your computer makes right before it crashes or the sound of a bag of kittens being thrown into a malfunctioning wood chipper then Odd Senses might be for you. I'm just not that much of a masochist.
other reviews of this album |
TheResidents619 (3.5) Ultimately, "Odd Senses" is a great EP disguised as an uneven full-length album....
BringMeABrick (2.5) Odd Senses, while being occasionally enjoyable, is basically Psyopus's first two albums with water p...
Psychaberration (2) What we have here is a failure to evolve from the juvenile past efforts into something a little more...
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Album Rating: 2.0
dammit, beaten to the first review . oh well, at least this time it wont get pulled. enjoy, if you havent already read it .
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
awwwww.... my review was totally overshadowed
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Decent review. I like this band so I'm going to download this and see what I think. Hopefully it won't be as bad as you make out.
| | | Nice review, rather funny as well. Your language was a bit casual at times, but you stuck to it and it worked in this case, good job.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
^^ I find an overly formal tone doesn't bode well for things such as reviews, imo, as informality usually shows a glimpse of what kind of person the writer is and, therefore, gives a perspective of the subjective aspect as well as the standard objective aspects of a review.
/writingphilosophy
| | | ya band is awful
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^^ I find an overly formal tone doesn't bode well for things such as reviews, imo, as informality usually shows a glimpse of what kind of person the writer is and, therefore, gives a perspective of the subjective aspect as well as the standard objective aspects of a review.
True, it's always important to inject some personality into one's review.
| | | hmmmm not my comments. interesting
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Wow i am shocked this band got such a low rating, these guys are awesome dudes and really smart musicians...minus the drugs.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
This is actually growing on me. I may have to up my rating.
| | | what on earth do people see in psyopus i mean i know its weird coming from me a lover of suicide silence but their music is just annoying to listen to
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Now, there is a difference between simply not liking some particular sound and being biased to hell. I for instance do not like black metal in any way, but then again, the technical proficiency of most black metal bands is at an all time low, being just 5 chords a track lol. However, rating an album as bad because you simply don't like the sound of it discredits you and the whole community you write for. Why? Because that means that the rating would be totally different from writer to writer, and that my dear reviewer is something I DON'T look for when searching through reviews. I'd suggest you simply stop reviewing anything...for good, since you do a terrible job...at least. You didn't comment on what instruments were used, nor did you say anything about important things like time signatures, polyrhythm, riff cycles, textures etc etc All you were doing is complaining about how you could not listen to the music. If you could not listen to it then why on earth would anyone with at least an average IQ take your review into account? You should have just given it over to someone who actually listened to it and isn't horribly subjective...and knows a thing or 2 about music. I'd love to write my own review now, but then again, I'm not payed to do it, you are, so I'll refrain from doing so. I'm just going to say this is one of the most technically proficient albums ever which does not consist of simple shreding but amazingly complex textures, tapping included. Whether you like it or not, there is hardly anything out there worthy of being called amazing after this. But then, I'm sure dear reviewer you'd disagree, so I suggest you stick to Britney Spears and all the other planetary popular and oh so ear friendly "musicians," and do yourself and the whole world a favor and stop writing reviews.
| | | ^^ haha
I can type with a banana... Anyway, this band is pretty much the worst band I've ever listened to.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Choker Chain just makes me giggle.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
band knows what kind of music they like to play. if you don't like spaz-core, then GTFO.
srsly
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
don't really like them
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I actually enjoy them, it's a random, energetic listen.
Good grindcore-esque kinda sound.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
chris arp is epic. i saw his limp bizkit audition tape and started listening to these guys. am i the only one here who loves technical wankery?
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
Haha, I still like this shit. It's absolutely nuts in a weird way I find enjoyable. SMILE FOR THE CAMERA!
| | | Just listened to two of their songs.
I never heard a band with such a weird guitarsound ^^
Supertechnical but I think that there are no songs really...
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