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Review |
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Thrice have always been a band who come up with new ideas and better themselves
with each and every album they release and this time the band have come
up with something bigger and better than anything they have done before
and bigger than what anyone could imagine the band coming up with. Instead
of writing an album full of ten to twelve songs the band have decided
to write four separate EP's consisting of 6 six songs each, each EP represents
the four elements of nature, Fire, Water, Earth and Air and the most interesting
thing is that each of the four EP's have a distinctive sound and theme.
All four EP's were recorded at the same time but the band have decided
to release the EP's in two parts with Fire and Water being released together
now and the Earth and Air EP being released sometime in the Spring which
is a good choice as it gives the bands fans enough time to fully explore
and get into 12 new tracks instead of 24 at once.
'The Alchemy Index: Vols 1 and 2 Fire And Water' comes in a nice fold
out case and features 12 tracks with the first 6 being under the fire
category and the other 6 being under the water category, and before you
start thinking to yourself that it’s technically a 12 track album,
you are very wrong as the release is split into 2 Cd’s with 6 tracks
being on each cd and the tracks on Fire sound so different from the tracks
on Water.
The first volume happens to be Fire and it happens to be a good choice
as the songs on Fire sound more like the bands older sound and will be
more familiar sounding to the bands fans due to the huge riffs and hard
hitting sound. The Fire EP opens up with 'Firebreather' which starts off
with some chunky riffs and soon the uplifting chorus comes in and before
you know it the song ends with an epic outro.
'The Messenger' features an electro sounding introduction and is quite
a raw heavy sounding song. 'Backdraft' features quite a laid back drum
solo that becomes more louder and more constant as the song goes on, the
vocals come in sounding quite ghostly but the song soon bursts into the
huge sing a long chorus. What really makes the Fire cd is 'The Flame Deluge',
the song has quite a long introduction featuring many different soundscapes
and then suddenly out of nowhere the song becomes quite brutal sounding
and once again mellows out for the laid back outro.
If you put the Water cd in as soon as you have finished listening to the
Fire cd you will be in for a bit of a shock at how different the Water
cd sounds as everything is more laid back and the EP features more electronics
and everything is softer sounding from the instruments to the vocals.
The Water EP opens up with 'Digital Sea', the song is totally full of
effects and electronics and sounds totally over produced by computers
including the muffled vocals but by no means does that mean that the song
is bad as it is actually quite a chilled out listenable song. 'Open Water'
sounds quite similar to 'Digital Sea' and is another really laid back
song that features a lot of electronic effects and really chilled out
vocals but is slightly better than 'Digital Sea' with the way the vocals
grow and become a bit more up beat as the song goes on.
Each song on the Water EP features really chilled out introductions which
take a really long time to get going such as on 'Night Diving' which seems
to take forever to get going due to the fact that the song is an instrumental
track and runs for over 6 minutes. A six minute long instrumental track
sounds quite boring but is actually one of the strongest tracks on the
Water EP due to the constant changes in music sounding like something
from a movie.
The Water EP finishes with 'Kings Upon The Main' which is the kind of
track that is bound to put you to sleep due to the laid back sleepiness
of the song, you really need to listen to the track to believe.
Overall Thrice have come up with a really interesting idea releasing 4
different EP's using a totally different theme and sound for each. The
Fire cd is really easy to get into and most people will love it from the
start, the Water cd on the other hand takes a lot of time to get into
and fully enjoy but in my opinion the Water cd is so much better than
the Fire cd and Thrice have proved just how talented and technical they
can be and that they have the knowledge to go one step ahead than any
other band when it comes to making concept albums or should I say 4 concept
albums in a year. I can’t wait to hear the Earth and Air instalments
of the series and see what else Thrice can come up with.
4/5
Review by Trigger |
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| Band
Members |
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Teppei Teranishi (Guitar)
Ed Breckenridge (Bass)
Dustin Kensrue (Vocals, Guitar)
Riley Breckenridge (Drums) |
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Listing |
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Disc 1 - Fire
Firebreather
The Messenger
Backdraft
The Arsonist
Burn the Fleet
The Flame Deluge
Disc 2 - Water
Digital Sea
Open Water
Lost Continent
Night Diving
The Whaler
Kings Upon the Main |
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| Band
Related Links |
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| Review
Score Code |
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- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
-
What Was That? |
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