As most of you non-essential workers I have been working from home for what seems like forever now. What I see as one of the positive sides is that I get to decide what music to listen to (for those moments I am not in an online meeting that is). No discussions about what radio station to tune into. I live a life largely oblivious to what is going on in the world of popular music and I like it that way.
Now that we have established that I have that huge privilege we can start to distinguish different types of music and how they influence your day. There are three main types, I think. First up there’s the music you’ve known for ages. The kind you put on and can tune into or out of just like that. It is perfect background music, but if you need a break you pay attention to and you immediately catch the flow of the track or album. Second is new music. This demands a bit more from me. There’s stuff happening that I don’t know yet and my mind wants to wander off constantly to check out what’s going on (if you ever chat with me in a pub that has it’s music a tad too loud you’ll notice this happening constantly). Funny enough this didn’t happen when I played Almøst Human's latest album XS2XTC for the first couple of times.
To be honest, it was a busy day. Still it was weird to realise after a couple of hours working that I tuned in to the music and thought: have I heard this before? This does not mean this is terrible music, I found this album rather enjoyable although it does have its flaws. Before we get into that, let’s introduce the band. Almøst Human is a Swiss band that is a bit pretentious and pompous. I quote: “it’s also a universe, an orchestration of the life and death’s cycle”. Stuff like that is a bit much, but it makes sense once you delve into all the promo material I received. But more on that later on. Almøst Human started way back in the 90’s, was disbanded for a while and revived in 2008. After one EP the band released their first full length album last year. They took their time to perfect their craft, one could say. They clearly are children of the 90’s as XS2XTC is a bit of a Nu-Metal affair. This was never my favourite genre, but I have to admit that adding different influences to their sounds makes for an interesting listen. The base is however Spineshank, Rob Zombie, Static-X or Disturbed Nu-Metal sound. Add to this some sprinkles of djenty riffs, some Gojira style drums, some Devin Townsend atmospherics (I am reminded of his Ocean Machine album during “Chemical Breakfast" amongst others). The vocals are a bit diverse as well. The main style used reminds me a bit of (modern) Killing Joke, but more clean vocals are used as well.
What I really enjoy is that the band has added an explanation to the concept of the band and album, but also to the individual lyrics. The explanation of the lyrics are very interesting, not coming to too easy conclusions. An example of this is the song “What Makes You So Hard?” that talks about Monsanto and more specifically genetic engineering. I was expecting the easy: this is wrong conclusion, but instead was faced with the question: can anything good come out of this when we doubt their intentions? Meanwhile the band talks about a whole range of subjects, ranging from religion to society to AI and it’s effects on us humans. I feel like this is the kind of people you can have really interesting conversations with.
While I do appreciate the explanation of the cover artwork, the logo of the band, the fact that they linked the vocal style to the message they want to deliver I get the feeling it is a bit too much thought out. Music, to me, is also very much something that has to speak to me emotionally. That feeling is a bit lost by overthinking your concept. Which I guess is why the music can flow by without noticing it too much. Still, when you pay attention, you are rewarded, as most of the time there’s something interesting going on. I would suggest a bit more self-editing for their second album, not only within some songs (“Beloved Pet” could be a minute shorter at least, for example), but also loose one or two songs. The album as a whole is is a tad long as it is now.
Tracks to check: “War Pigs”, “In The Name(s) Of God(s)”.
