Master Toad & Pollux - Offer Their Souls
Dark Ambient with a sense of melody
All the songs are freely listenable and downloadable from last.fm which is linked to the title of the track when first mentioned. For whole packet, scroll to the bottom of the review.
Master Toad starts the split with 4 tracks, and 3 are instant hits. The vaguely hearable I Stood Upon The Beach of Lost Souls has a scary atmosphere and an unexplainable dark tower vibe, somehow still manages to stay interesting. If I was you I wouldn't tune up the volume, as Dark Insects of the Catacomb whirrs right in with a dark egyptian atmosphere about 20DB louder. Extremely solid and gloomy, and fitting to the title! Curiously, the track delivers an atmosphere alike Mythological Cold Towers' release The Vanished Pantheon. A massive doom record that has been on my regular playlist again lately. Similar atmosphere continues with Frail Raft Through The Rivers of Hell and if possible, it fits its title even better. A grim journey, but stays pleasant by growing up to a wonderful guitar melody in the end.
Unicorn Dreams finishes up the first half with a lighter tone and a beautiful melancholic melody.
What stands out in Master Toad's side is that is so organic. As nighttime music goes, it is hard to top tunes that combine an interesting Ambient wall with a tangible story and as a cherry on the cake, a guitar melody.
Pollux's side is less organic, but it still delivers great melodies. Black Hope has a big Braid -vibe. As Braid happens to be one of the best indie games of all time, this is very pleasant, though again, quite unexplained. Blue Hope is, if possible, the best track on this album with a light piano and very pleasant pulsing soundwave. The album finishes up Ghosts (Eternal Version), which is an interesting dark ambient wall, with a similar scary vibe than I Stood Upon The Beach of Lost Souls, concluding this album in fitting manner.
In free download weblabel releases, you rarely hear such well crafted passion and skill packed in a compact packet without any fillers.
Overall score: 9+/10
Download the release: http://www.archive.org/details/kof078MasterToadPollux-OfferTheirSouls
1. Master Toad & Pollux - Offer Their Souls
2. Golden Cloud & O.S.I.S. - Split
The text was originally released as a part of last.fm journal "Great albums you've never heard of I" http://www.last.fm/user/Takkeri/journal/2011/12/12/58q703_great_albums_you%27ve_never_heard_of_i_-_mythological_cold_towers%2C_blueprint_human_being%2C_pollux%2C_master_toad
Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music, why?
Being an avid underground rock/metal listener and huge fan in finding new music and genres I stumbled to TRASHFUCK Records, RedSK and their noise in 2009. A lot of their releases at best make me bored, scared and entertained at the same time. This impressesed me to try out more of the weblabel scene and introduced me to Sirona Records' Arnaud. I decided to start reviewing electronic music records after I realized Im really not sure what is going on in half of Sironas' releases.
Im trying to give my humble opinions on some new music, whose genres, I may or may not have any familarity, but sure thing is they are far from my normal music grounds. I have a feeling, if by chance I happen to stumble to albums with genre titles like "rave" "deathcore" or "techno", I might have a hard time saying a single positive thing, but nevermind that. You can always bypass it by the fact that im just narrow-minded metalhead reviewing experimental music.
Electronic artists which I can say im a fan of are few, but some. Including Venetian Snares, Scorn, Nothing, Boris Clitoris / The Amoeba, Master Toad, Godflesh, Slagsmålsklubben. P.S. I know its hip to hate dubstep nowadays, but some dubstep can be mindblowing.
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