Altsounds - O! The Joy - Zen Mode [CD]

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O! The Joy - Zen Mode [CD]

O! The Joy… of the off switch.

Maybe that’s a little harsh. After all, the first moments of the title track are promising. These young men from deepest darkest Sacramento have the musical ability of a great band but there’s something wrong. It’s possibly because they’re still trying to find their feet in the experimental math-rock pond. An insane mixture of different time signatures is confusing, with the occasional odd breaks in songs that sound like a 5 year old whacking a piano.

They are reminiscent of The Fall of Troy avec vocals similar to Incubus’ Brandon Boyd, hitting their high hats and adding little drum rolls here and there. The guitar solos running up and down, not always executed in a way that makes the album easy to listen to. After all, Zen is a Japanese area of Buddhism, the name originally deriving from the term “meditation”! The beginning of track two “There’s No Such Thing” brings hope for something a little less harsh on the ears and for the first minute and a half it is, until the song develops into a mad battle of “who can be the loudest” between the drums and the guitars. This seems to be a repeated technique throughout the album. In a way it makes sense; if one finds a winning formula then why not use it over and over again? Answer: because over-use gets tedious and boring.

“Under The Radar” is one of the better tracks, along with eight-minute epic “Zen Mode”. Carrying heavy bass and delightful harmonies the tracks are the key listening rungs of the album. 22435 starts well, however the track gets cruelly monotonous and repeat’s the same sequence of riffs and rhythms for over 6 minutes.

O! The Joy have put out their debut with the zeal and ambition of any passionate band, however there is still work to do. The band could be great and some of the songs are alright, so let’s hope they bring together something more exciting for album number two.