Short Reviews [Mechanical Organic - 2010 - "The Pleasure Fled"]

The Australian band MECHANICAL ORGANIC is the creative vehicle of musical veteran Eddie Katz, which he has put together to be able to explore his creative ideas without any inhibitions. Apparently, his goal is to combine electronic music and progressive metal, resulting in what he describes as hybrid metal. On this EP, "The Pleasure Fled" ("Disrepair Part 2”), the concept is explored in the just over 17 minutes long effort Into the Fangs of Lunacy, a curious creation combining a gentle piano theme, wedged in between a majestic synth backdrop, and warmly mixed, distorted guitar riff cascades, with plenty of harmonic guitar solos and a few synth dominated atmospheric inserts added for variety. Dampened lead vocals are applied for verses and chorus passages, while some vocal parts and most of the elongated instrumental efforts have a sampled, talking voice as an additional feature. The music is dark in mood, reminding me of a subtler variety of the material Norwegian act Age of Silence explored a few years back, mixed with one particular track by Dream Theater, namely Space Dye Vest. But not quite as intriguing I might add, partially due to the vocals being a bit hard to follow, but mostly because the aforementioned talking voice tends to be distracting. A much shorter radio edit of the song is also present on the EP, and listening to this one on the band's MySpace page will most likely be a good way to find out whether or not this band makes music to your liking.

Olav M Bjornsen: Feb 18, 2011