Telepathy - 12 Areas (2014)
On their first full album, Telepathy
have a distinct focus on developing a near-palpable atmosphere, one
with rumbling mechanisms, fading echoes, and distant wails of
trailing notes. Of course, they also have room for high-speed drum
tricks, wild time-signature shifting, and a sharp electrical edge to
the guitar as it slices through the murkiness surrounding it, so the
album's tension never reaches an oppressive level. Telepathy, in
keeping with their name, prefer not to use vocals, putting all of the
pressure on their ability to communicate via the instruments.
Truth be told, their technique and
skills, along with the synergy of the band, is genuinely impressive.
Listening to the album, it's easy to imagine the many grueling
practice sessions behind the final product, and it's hard not to
respect their dedication. The trouble is, the songs are a little too
hyper-kinetic and abrupt in their shifting between drastically
different moods, so for a significant chunk of the album, whatever ideas they're trying to get across or story they're trying to tell ends up obscured
by the audio pyrotechnics they've chosen to use. Admittedly, in the second half of the album, a lot of that over-the-top freneticism is resolved into more linear progressions, so it there is a working story arc to the album, one that likely improves the more times you follow along with your ears. Maybe it just takes a
telepath to appreciate another telepath's idiomatic expression, so if you dig on complex arrangements and high-speed
bombastics, dig into this and let your mind drift.
~ Gabriel
For Fans Of; Between The
Buried And Me, Behold... The Arctopus, Mastodon, Biomechanical,
Meshuggah
~
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