Review Summary: A low overlap album.
I don’t know if you ever used drones for humanitarian de-mining, but if not, I’ll get you up to speed in no time.
So, one of the ways you can use drones to clear some land contaminated with mines, is to create a map of that land. You launch the drone, it flies over the designated plot of land, takes a series of snapshots through its camera with a preset regularity, and comes back. Could be done manually, could be done automatically. The resulting images are then closely scrutinized by a cartographer (GIS Officer), who detects the mines, and notes their coordinates. The point is that when a demining team comes next to do the actual clearance, they already have a map which tells them where there are mines or unexploded ordnance and where there are paths to approach and neutralize them. The important thing to know for the purpose of this review is that the drone that takes the photos can work in either of the two modes. It can be the [i]low overlap[i] mode, when the drone just takes a series of snapshots, each to be analyzed separately by the cartographer for presence of mines. This method is imperfect, but it's good if you have time limitations and need quicker results. Alternatively, it can be the
high overlap mode, which takes more time, and which means that the drone takes a lot of photos of every small portion of the surveyed land, thus creating a multitude of images and combining them into an
orthomosaic, which is a ready-to-use very detailed map, easier to study and more reliable for detection of mines.
Now, it made sense that the first Palindrom album was basically a series of snapshots: short and to the point songs that expressed a certain mood or brushed upon some topic without delving deeper into it. At the time, the whole project was conceived and written as a sort of improvisation, recorded over just a week or two, born out of a spontaneous burst of inspiration. But even though the follow-up album “Walls Have Ears” did not take too long to materialize, and was released just one year after the debut, one would still expect more grounded approach and some extension of the established sound.
And, at first glance, it seems like that extension actually took place. There are more songs, they are longer, and the overall runtime of the album exceeds that of its predecessor by 20 minutes. But those are just surface-level characteristics. In essence, most of the songs here are the same quick snapshots with one sung or rapped verse (rarely two) and a chorus repeated several times with not so much happening in between. Palindrom is good at these snapshots, and some of them still work just fine, particularly the more rhythmical, faster songs. I particularly enjoy the disco-tinged “Cold and Snow” (track No.5) with wonderful falsetto in the chorus, and more reserved but still danceable “A Couple of Minutes” and “Souvenir” (tracks No. 7 and 8). It also helps that there’s significantly more rapping here than on the previous album, which feels more organic for the artist and helps him to preserve some connection with his background as a former member of a rap duo. On the other hand, whenever Palindrom switches to mid-tempo or slower songs, the results are typically rather boring. A clear example here is “Briukhovychi 97” (track No.6). The name references a small village near the city of Lviv, which holds nostalgic value for Palindrom. As such, it has very nice, warm and kind lyrics. At the same time, the melody and vocals here have a rather sleepy vibe about them, so the song turns out lethargic rather than nostalgic.
But, of course, it’s not just about tempo of the songs. The main issue is that a lot of the songs here, slow or otherwise, could use a bit more fleshing out and development to increase their impact or memorability. Case in point, “Angels” (track No.12), which has a nice dancing groove, but is too abrupt and finishes before it can make a proper impression. The same goes for “Calendar,” the first proper song on the album. It starts with some nice Depeche Mode reminiscent rhythms and promising post-punkish vocals aaaand… then what? Nothing much. But these tracks at least show some promise. Along the way there are also quite a few songs that just pass by even upon multiple listens.
Palpable lack of progress is what hinders the album the most, and even the more singular synth pop oriented direction serves more as a disadvantage, securing some tactical wins along the way, but making the album feel rather monotonous and drawn out. Even the lyrics, which are usually a strong point for Palindrom, feel weak and nonsensical on a lot of songs here. You guys don’t speak Ukrainian of course, but for this whole album I can’t find even one or two lyrical snippets that I would want to translate for you as a sample.
Alas, maybe Palindrom was aiming to create an
orthomosaic, but this time he didn’t quite reach the goal. Instead, we have a typical second album, where a lot of themes from the debut are repeated with significantly lesser impact. Which does not mean that the album is completely bad. It just could have been better.
