Review Summary: It's Aphex Twin/AFX! Same person, FYI.
What can I say about Aphex Twin? No, not a history of his other works, but I can tell you that what Richard D. James has done has fascinated me and only now have I taken the time (and money) to look into it. Not this time, though. When my friend lent me
Chosen Lords I was impressed by the case. The cardboard, simplistic styling unexplainably stunned me.
I put the album in and it whirls around, suddenly kicking in with a raw, simple, electronic beat in
Fenix Funk 5. Then the synths come in with a sort of out of tune pitch to them. The it just starts up as a normal Aphex Twin song goes, with odd, eclectic synths and voice modifiers adding textures until you hear the melody start seeping through that shocks you: it’s
awesome. The drums stop and there is a harpsichord like ‘solo’ (if you can call it that) adding more layers. Back again to the weird synths and then it jumps along to building up more steam with more complex beats and added layers and sounds. This song continues on in this fashion (up and down) for more than 5 minutes. Is this a bad thing? Certainly not. Reasoning? He did it so damn well.
Aphex Twin (or AFX) uses unconventional ways to structure his songs. Adding rises and falls through out the entire album he allows electronic songs to go on for almost 7 minutes without being boring or ridiculous. This is general breakcore/techno/electronic (whatever you feel like calling it) but it is done in such a way where you get immersed and taken for a ride which is neither the best thing ever, or terrible. It is just great.
One major fault, for me, on this album is the lack of any standout tracks. Not to say they are homogonous, they do all (if superficially) have many differences in sound, beats, key, etc. I can’t find a single track that I want to flip to when I put in the CD, I just let it play through the whole album. Yes, there are many parts where he puts in a melody that is just great, and other parts with beats that stun you, or other parts that do other things to amaze you. It’s just that they are all too spread out to be fully enjoyed/embodied in a single song.
The lengths of the songs put me off at first; listening to an 8 minute Aphex Twin song was daunting. After a few listens of the CD you may find yourself flipping through songs to find things that you heard before. Such as the ambient section at the end of
Crying In Your Face. You get entranced by the songs but they aren’t something you sit and listen to with full attention to try and grasp all the greatness that they have. It’s songs are all together good, but many of their parts, when looked at with scrutiny, are actually excellent.
I am on the fence with how much I will like Aphex Twin’s older music, there aren’t any songs like
4 on here, although
Cilonen comes close.
PWSteal .Ldpinch. D and
XMD 5a are songs that show his prowess in electronic music and still keep the album the way it is: not as good as its individual parts.
Pros
Aphex Twin made a great CD
Some amazing melody sections
Some great beats
Some great synth parts
Some great etc. (!!!)
Great textures/layers throughout
Cons
No stand out tracks
Not something to gape at
You won’t stop what you are doing to listen to any part of it
Rating
3.8/5
