One of the missions of the investigative metal journalist is perhaps to trace back the cultural heritage of the musicians in the “musick” they make. Yours truly, is perhaps one of the mates that takes this mission quite seriously.
SM hails from Brooklyn and its industrial and recently gentrified neighborhoods. Well, this already tells us a lot about the band. An inevitable yet smooth mixture of elegant genres and various musical traditions, “suspended animation dreams” promises a lot, and truthfully keeps its promise. SM is the only band I know that is closest to Naervaer and the genre it represents. Presenting pure a la European avant garde tunes with surprising instrumental richness, this album deserves much closer attention.
The album opens with a rather smooth tune. The smoothness of the melodies is then heavily disturbed with the masculine vocals. The next song, albeit preserving the smoothness but introducing a bit more rockish means, has always sounded to me as a song composed and performed by a rockish chamber orchestra. In this song, the aforementioned mixture of different instruments and the cultures is carefully embedded into a sad and a bit depressed atmospheric aura. The third act, “No Place Like Home” has always been my favorite SM piece. The sound of harmonica, masculine yet quite sad vocals together with the simple rhythms reminds me of the ideal music that I always look for. A sudden attack of brutal vocals definitely make this piece a climax of creativity and musical composition. The next song is another example of SM being the metalic melting pot of American musical heritage. The song starts off as a simple and nice song and is joined with the choral vocals that turn it into a brilliant composition. The last song I will mention is the final act. The song X posits itself as a perfect piece as the final hit of this album. First and foremost of all, female vocals, no surprise here, turns it into a quite impressive song. As you will possibly get yourself familiarize with, X is a very good representation of SM’s style: starting with an easy tune, make it complicated on the way and finish with a rather powerful attack of vocals and guitars. After all, once X is finished spinning in your boombox (?!?) you will feel the sensation!
Remember, “suspended animation dreams” is the soundtrack of life!
-Can Baskent
VITALS:
Release: 2005
Label: The End Records
Avantgenre: Progressive Chamber Rock
Duration: 54:50
Origin: USA
Official site: http://www.submasq.com
Review online since: 24.12.2010 / 23:23:45
TRACKLIST:
01 – Suspended Animation Dreams
02 – Wolf Among Sheep (Or Maybe The Other Way Around)
03 – No Place Like Home
04 – Kind Of A Blur
05 – The Rock N’ Roll Preacher
06 – Six Strings To Cover Fear
07 – Awake
08 – X
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