This debut EP from Subterranean Masquerade brings to a light a type of music combining the likes of Pink Floyd with Opeth-like melodies and jazzy breakdowns that have not been seen before.
This bands features members Novembers Doom and Agalloch to create music that is the to the word 'weirds' fullest extent.
Lineup...
Paul Khur - vocals
Tomer Pink - guitars
Jake DePolitte - guitars & Bass
Tino LoSicco - drums
Tracklist...
Temporary Psychotic State (A Recollection Of Where It All Began)
Observation Through Metamorphosis
While this EP only has two tracks, it totals about 17 minutes in length of completely original music.
Temporary Psychotic State opens the EP with some circus type music with some acoustic, jazzy guitars dueling. This is a good underlining theme throughout the EP.
One thing that stands out through out the EP is the violin playing, while no violin player is listed in the lineup, there an almost constant violin going on. This gives the music a very nice edge, i really like this violin.
Under the music, there is a bit of keyboarding action, but nothing major at all. I can compare it to Ulver's later works, you don't notice it, but without it the music would be completely different.
The vocals for the most part are clean, doomy vocals.
Both songs take a few minutes to build up to the climax of the song, but when they do, it's well worth the wait. Containing more of a growl in the vocal department, epic violins, perfect guitars. It's a wonderful moment for music. Everything comes together perfectly at this point in both of these songs.
Observation through Metamorphasis has a similar song structure to the Temporary Psychotic state, but in my opinion this is a better song. Again starting off with jazzy guitars and epic violin playing. Again, the presence of trippy keyboards is there in the background.
This song brings about woman vocals, and the more metal side of Subterranean Masquerade. After a long buildup containing woman vocals, and some good acoustic guitar work along with some weird effects the song comes to it's climax (which can be downloaded here http://media.theendrecords.com/Submasq_temporary_extract.mp3 )
How much i love this part of the song is absolutely absurd. This is the climax of the album, before it finally ends on this note.
This album will appeal to fans of anything from trip hop to Opeth, here we have a wonderful creation of original music containing layers upon layers of music under very well crafted music. These guys really know what they are doing, and I for one cannot wait for the full length in 2005.
Overall, 4.3/5 only because it's an EP.
http://media.theendrecords.com/Submasq_temporary_extract.mp3
