Review Summary: Whoa.
Listening to something a friend created always feels a little bit strange. Throughout my time on sputnik, I’ve listened to plenty of user-made albums though, most of which I’ve enjoyed. Hell, last year a big bunch of us contributed to
Molecular Corporation, which was ambitious but wildly inconsistent. Such a thing would be expected with such a long runtime and so many different people, but some other user-made things are very much worthy of praise. Of course Cap has Trvth, Judio and Laughingman have Sugary Sweet Machines, Fripp has Big Nig, and Yak has had plenty of things. Right now, Yak’s newest release is a collaboration with fellow user Mindlevicitus. A self-professed screamo EP was made by the two, but damn it seems to be much more than just that.
If you’ve been active on sputnik since about early 2014, it’s likely that you knew about Dry Satire and the wildly split opinions on it. Yak, Clim, and Demi all collaborated to create a sort of screamo/emoviolence kind of thing, but the recording quality deteriorated from almost everything that may have been good about the music. Luckily, with the newest release from Yak and Mindle the production is top-notch allowing everything to be heard clearly. Some may argue that the cleanliness detracts from the punk vibe screamo gives off, but this is much more than your typical screamo release. Seriously, the EP opens with a string sample as an intro. But of course, it quickly goes into dissonant chaos in the realm of Circle Takes the Square. Of course, they lack the hugely technical elements of said group, but this is easily just as expansive. They play around with almost prog-like elements, in studio experimentation such as backmasking, strange mixing, and weird atmospheric textures. Plus, the grind influence sometimes associated with their genre isn’t really here at all. But, there are a few minor criticisms that need to be said.
As an EP, this is grade A quality. But, it feels like it all ends far too quickly. This would’ve been spectacular as a full album, since as a nine minute EP it feels like it just cuts off. Sort of like how Refused’s
The Shape of Punk to Come concludes with an acoustic song, this has lots of great stuff in the middle, but the conclusion simply comes far too quickly. Maybe this is something that you could say is attributed to punk itself, but this feels far too weird to just end like this. On top of that, only two songs could really be considered songs. The intro is just that, and the final track “End of Cravings” is just an acoustic pattern that lasts about two minutes. But, even with these slight flaws, the EP holds up very well as a possible preview of what could come next. If they add more meat and cheese in between the bread, they could have a masterpiece of an album honestly. Either way, very good job Yak and Mindle.
