Detailed Reviews [Soniq Theater – 2022 – "Cinemagic"]

Prolusion. Cinemagic is the 22nd and, as of October 2022, the last album by the German act Soniq Theater, released on 1 January this year. Like all other works by this single-member project, this one is available on Bandcamp at ‘name your price.’

Analysis. Over the years, Soniq Theatre’s music style has evolved yet remained the same – original and recognisable, largely because of the specific use of synthesisers as the only instrument, substituting a wide range of instruments typical of a full band (and even wider), yet not attempting to delude the listener what they hear is something other than synthesisers. The result is a funny but nice and sincere musical world, which lacks in gravity, however, and this is for me the biggest problem. Most compositions are medium-length songs with a verse-chorus structure (but since Soniq Theatre has no/very few vocal parts and lyrics, the verses and choruses are developed with instrumental means entirely – songs without words). Inside songs (as well as, perhaps, inside albums and throughout the discography) you will rarely come across sharp and unexpected twists and turns, yet Alfred Mueller knows how to attract the listener, making his compositions softly develop in a spiral, with each new coil of a song bringing you to a somewhat different level. The soundscape is diverse, the production quality largely decent for self-released albums. The visual design of the albums also remains uniform throughout the discography and adds to originality. It is very laconic and consists of one unicolour symbol (green on most early albums and black-and-white on later ones), the name of the band (Soniq Theatre) and the title of an album. In Cinemagic I have found the generally familiar atmosphere, but as usual made some interesting discoveries. Unfortunately, the present work, like many of Alfred Mueller’s recent ones, again lacks somewhat in consistency, particularly in comparison with the previous album – Time and Space, and in about the middle of it the quality of the material abruptly and noticeably drops. Nevertheless, there are a few compositions that deserve more scrupulous examination, and I really like some of them. The opener is a solid, almost 7-minute multi-structural song, one of the best on the album and, perhaps, in the latest discography, complex compositionally and harmonically, with a great variety of sounds – from winds and strings to authentically and naturally sounding skillful synthesised electric guitars and even decent and diversified drums. It begins with a piano and later evolves dynamically in the best traditions of the classical symphonic progressive rock, switching between odd and regular beats and changing tempos. There are also good female vocal parts, definitely natural, although I find no mentioning of them in the line-up part. A truly great song! This is followed by Screen Goddess – a good andante-tempo piano-based verse-and-chorus song. In the middle, it is interrupted by an interlude where Alfred tries to confuse us rhythmically, and quite succeeds in that. Track 3 is Mueller’s attempt at an epic, which can be concluded from both the title (Epic Movie) and the length (8:49). This attempt is not so successful. Although it demonstrates an overall good quality, has interesting moments and all characteristics of an epic song, such as a ragged texture, intricate beats, it is generally somewhat dull and lacks in inspiration, it seems. In addition, synthesisers are not enough to create depth and ‘epicity.’ The beginning sounds very much like the intro to the famous Magnum Opus from Kansas’s Leftoverture, but further develops in a different way. Blockbuster (4), Greetings from Hollywood (5) and Motion Picture (6) are standard Soniq Theatre-style songs of a decent quality, but are quite beautiful and atmospheric, particularly track 5. The first two of them demonstrate skillful and original use of human-voice synthesisers, which are amply used throughout this album, by the way. The songs that come after are either experimental or of noticeably lower quality (or both) and sound more like bonus tracks. The concluding song improves the impression of the second part of the album, but the rhythm part is still quite weak.

Conclusion. An album of unstable value, consisting of a couple of truly excellent songs, which can be ranked among the best in Soniq Theatre discography, a few nice and decent ones and a few dubious tracks. Inconstancy in terms of contents and extreme consistency in release dates are, perhaps, the defining characteristics of Alfred Mueller’s work.

Proguessor: October 2022
The Rating Room