Although he makes you work to grasp them (Long-standing conventions of punctuation, grammar, and capitalization in English are optional, apparently, when it's "Diatribing-time!"), JohnnyoftheWell's criticisms in his review are basically right: This is a vapid, shapeless, cacophonous amalgamation of disjunctive production choices masquerading as artistic expression.
"Aqua Regia" is the only redeeming track on here with any intriguing dynamics. The omnipresent modulated auto-tuned vocals are dialed down a bit in the verses and bounce well in the choruses with the jazz-lounge piano slinking seductively in the background. These elements' flirty interplay builds and then climaxes with some actual erotic, poetic swagger before being snuffed out for just more samplings of insipid sonic slop.
If we could give this album an achievement, it would only be that it can be described as a hideous chimera so malformed and grotesque in its monstrous monotony, contra Greek myth, it would slay Bellerophon and devour his noble winged steed, Pegasus -- both of whom are Classical representations of heroism, goodness, and beauty.
Sure, we could also say Take Me Back to Eden is "music" insofar that contents can be tautologically characterized as sound organized in time. However, that raises the question: What godforsaken intelligence did the organizing? Some commenters on JohnoftheWell's review quipped that the album sounds like as if it was devised and generated by AI. For the sake of us all, I pray not. What is certain, though, is that whatever entity, homo sapiens or otherwise, that is culpable for begetting this latest travesty of our postmodern culture lacks the thing that defines our species of hairless, bipedal ape as indeed human, and makes sound organized in time known as music in fact worth listening to -- a soul.
(It also means that there definitely is a ginger beneath that silly mask and behind that pretentious "Vessel" persona.) |
