Review Summary: With so many ideas flowing around the mix at once, Technicolor ultimately fails to come to the boil on any of its laurels. The artistic ideas overflow genius, but its piecing together into one coherent package, is clumsy and ineffective.
Technicolor’s press release is riddled with the sorts of hyperbole best described as inextricably pretentious. Language like “Art-core” (not hardcore), “opposing acoustic concepts”, and “scientific law”, already says much about a band with a lot to say, but in the completely wrong way. This not at the very least, proves a massive disservice to Dioramics music (if I’m allowed to mention ‘Dioramics music’ in one swoop without breaking sweat, aligning them with the stars and some sort of theory about the abacus) misleading you every word.
This is Lifeforce Records first 2010 offering. And whilst the underwhelment doesn’t take long to kick in, it says much for the attitude of the label. That being, a willingness to publish ambitious projects that wriggle far from the conventional, and we can only applaud Lifeforce and Dioramic for their efforts, if even the finishing line hasn’t been quite reached. Notably this is Dioramic’s full length debut, with only uploads and an EP to have completed their otherwise baby-steps to inception. If you feel that’s enough to warrant a sympathised critique, we digress; there’s enough promise present on Technicolor to recognise the trio amongst others, but not near enough nous needed to pull off this technical, progressive and hardcore experiment.
Dioramics meat and vegetables (like most technical acts) is their guitar riffing, fulfilling mostly a melodic component on the record. The shifting flavour of the ‘chug’ and chord progressions throughout the guitar playing, help give Technicolor a diverse complement, as finding both played at the same time (in the said genres), is rare at best. The vocal floats between clean and higher pitched yelps that are reminiscent of Freak Kitchens, Christer Örtefors. It being second seated beside the guitars, it lacks the muscle needed to punch above them, instead creating melodic layers often lost within the guitars mid, and fuzzy frequencies or quasi technical plucking. You’ll find a very strong and talented drum performance present, adding the needed flex of a percussive undercurrent, along with the bass throbbing taking the back seat. Samples are often thrown in, adding further depth to the tracks, and invariably Dioramic do experiment with various instruments across the board, which help only to mix things up.
With so many ideas flowing around the mix at once, Technicolor ultimately fails to come to the boil on any of its laurels (its progressive nature, its hardcore nature, and its art). What strikes, as most disappointing is the records broken structure, with each track feeling 50% complete, whilst the other half begins or ends in a complete slouch. The complete material lends a hand at demonstrating the potential for this act, but also reinforces that Dioramic’s ideas have no were near been fully realised. Its artistic ideas overflow genius, but its piecing together into one coherent package, is clumsy and ineffective. This is great art, poor execution.
A 2010 reboot by Lifeforce that comes across average, when at the peak of its powers.
