REVIEW: Acolyte, Delphic's new album.

As some of you might know by now, I like all sorts of music ranging from fast-paced dnb, to slow down tempo chillout.
Recently I came across a new band, and along with them, another genre.

Delphic

Delphic is a Rock/Alternative/Dance band composed of four UK dudes, accompanied by drummer Dan Hadley.

And damn, are they good.

For the past few weeks I've been waiting for Senior to be released by Röyksopp, but instead I got impatient, and had to use up my music voucher. So at the next opportunity I had, I bought 'Acolyte' - Delphic's latest album.

ACOLYTE

It was worth it too, because I feel great actually supporting them as artists, and getting all the album artwork, the physical cd and extra songs that just make legal music so much more rewarding.

Anyway, they're just amazing musicians, with their simple-yet-powerful vocals, great solos and electronic influences. I just love it all, they've achieved what some artists struggle to achieve.

Now, onto the songs:


Clarion Call

This starts of with a soft note playing from left to right, and in comes the soft vocals. The song progressively gets more up-beat and layered, which gives this song the 'depth' Delphic's songs have.

To be honest, this isn't my all time favourite, but it has its good parts for an intro, like the lyrics 'A call to arms! A call to arms! A call to everything you wanted, it's your life, it's your life, it's your life!'.

It's a little short, but a good example of their talent.

Doubt

By far, one of my favourites, Doubt is an up-beat raw song with powerful vocals. It starts with a text-to-speech voice speaking the vowels, and after it layers up a little, and then the lead vocals begin. This song is great from start to finish, with a great theme throughout.


This Momentary

This Momentary is a beautiful, soft song, which I think is about relationships between friends or closer, for example:

We were mean, what was said wasn't ever meant to hurt, real stories always come off worse, can we make the time to leave it behind, in the shape we make our faith in what we...see how you feel so unsteady, and we're ready, and we each remember finding your feet, in a fine time take the time to find me, I'll be ready waiting, let's do something real...

As far as lyrics go, that's pretty meaningful so it depends on how you interpret it. Either way, the vocals are smooth and complement the medium tempo of the song.

Red Lights

This song takes just seconds to jump into a melancholy sounding song, both vocally and rhythmically. The lyrics seem amusing to me, because most drivers can relate, who'd want to stop for a red light?

'I wouldn't stop for red lights, I wouldn't even have to think twice' 

This is a reasonable song, that's a tad repetitive lyric-wise, but altogether a great tune.

Acolyte

Acolyte is the most powerful, emotional and thrilling songs to listen to.


It starts off with quiet and minimal noises randomly changing and getting louder, all the while a beach-esque riff is playing, droning slowly. It fades to quiet...then out comes the bass and more rhythmic noises getting louder and 'advancing'. After more bursts of silence here and there, the bass guitar gets stronger, and as it does, the lead guitar sneaks up with, along with it some holy singing.

Then it thrusts you into a fast drum assault, with additional electronic beeps. The holy singing happens every now and then, though its indistinct.

I swear, I hear in the song:

Ahhh..hah..uhhh-hahh...This Acolyte..

 But I know its not as simple as that. I love this song, so there's not really any criticism here.

Halcyon

I'm getting used to hearing Halcyon by now, and I think I like it. It's catchy, the vocals are clear and its very chant-worthy if it were live.

Favourite lyric:

'If I'm wrong at least I know better!'

Submission

Initially, I only heard the demo of Submission, until I bought the album, and it definitely is different. They've added an electronic glockenspiel of some sort at the start, but they've kept the drum beat.

The vocals of Submission are amazing, ranging from soft to loud, which makes Submission all the better. 

Counterpoint

Counterpoint is one of their debut songs on the album, with a repetitive background synth and catchy vocals. It's an alright song I guess. :)


Ephemera

This is a little 'Arabic-prayer-esque' with subtle changes from the quiet, and low vocals. Until it reaches a point where the vocals go from low to uplifting and angelic.


Remain

Remain is probably one of the most unique songs of the album, with piano, and a soft bass in the background. The vocals are different to the other songs, in that the vocalist raises the notes more (like Chris Martin, when his voice breaks when singing). I truly like this song, its beautiful.

That's it, all the songs off Acolyte.

My Rating:

Out of 10, I give this album 9/10. Only a few songs weren't to my liking, but overall I liked the album.

Sorry if that was a little long-winded and too descriptive, but that's how I write. :)

Also their album isn't just 'beautiful', so don't go thinking its some pansy album. Trust me, they're got a raw element to their music which makes it interesting to listen.

I'm not going to give away a torrent of the album or anything, 'coz that's how the Pirates roll.

Instead, have a free, legal EP2 from Delphic directly from their site:

Delphic EP2 Download

Enjoy the Review Guys!

Renegade

REVIEW - The Crystal Method's Vegas album

After coming into contact with a few tracks from The Crystal Method's album, Vegas (Keep Hope Alive, and Busy Child), I simply couldn't resist getting a hold of the actual album.

For those of you that don't know (all of you), I love Breakbeat. I practice the discipline of Parkour, and Breakbeat music fits magically well into the feeling and rhythm of fast, hard movement.

By no stretch of the imagination is this an album for the masses. In Vegas you will find no Trance. I can tell you for certain that you will not here anything from this album in a club. By releasing The Crystal Method have really shown their devotion to Breakbeat, and shown that they won't be bowing down to consumerism, and the status quo of dance-style music. Well, maybe that's over-analysing it a bit, but it's nice to think that there's that much thought put into it =D

The album starts off slow, with Trip Like I Do's slow, heavily-melodic, beats, which quickly morph into fast Breakbeats. The song ends as suddenly as it began, and suddenly you're launched into one of the best songs on the album, Busy Child. The only reason I haven't marked it as best, is because of another fantastic song. I'll get to that later.

Busy Child is just straight, in-line Breakbeat. Nothing experimental or alternative. It's exactly what you need to hear. From there, the album moves into softer territory, with Cherry Twist (a decent breakbeat number, but lacks the power to really give it some oomph), followed by High Roller (a mostly down-beat number, filled with samples from a space shuttle launch).

After these two relatively tame numbers, the aptly named Comin' Back, steers The Crystal Method back into more conventional Breakbeat. The most unique thing about this song, though, is the presence of a vocalist. The song is well-structured, musically and lyrically, and the female vocalist suits the music being played. My only gripe is that the voice's harshness can sometimes slightly grate on the ears.

Following this, is Keep Hope Alive, a song structured much like the earlier Busy Child. Again, nothing particularly special or revolutionary is done to the music, but it just sounds awesome. If you're going for a jog, this is the kind of song you want to be listening to.

Suddenly, Keep Hope Alive ends, and Vapour Trail begins. After a buildup lasting around 2 minutes, the song finds its pace, and bounces quite nicely. Unfortunately, its pace and bounce feels slightly inadequate until around the 3 minute mark. From there, the song is a nice fun excursion through various computer-generated sounds, and effects. However, it's the weak link in what is an otherwise good album.

From there, in comes She's My Pusher. Make sure you have some nice bass-y earphones or headphones (or surround sound system), because this song has some beautiful rumbles in it. It starts off slow, but quickly moves into fast breakbeat. Just audible in the background of the intense breakbeat is a soft, gliding track, which is definitely a nice addition. From there, we move into Jaded, a slow breakbeat, featuring the same vocalist as Comin' Back. She sings some passages, and groans orgasmically in others. The Crystal Method must've been trying to take this album somewhere shifty =P

Bad Stone ends the album in a nice flurry of low-tempo passages. I would dare say that this song is a great song to relax to. Featuring piano flourishes, peaceful and ethereal synthesised sounds, and a slow, pumping drum beat, it finds its rhythm easily, and is a fantastic way to end an album as energetic as it is creative and original.

My Score
8.5/10

Vegas, while it may not be The Crystal Method' best work (in my humble opinion), is a great foray into the world of breakbeat, and is a must-buy for breakbeat newbies and TCM fans. However, it may not be to every breakbeat lover's tastes. It does have some flaws at certain points, such as intrusive singing, weak beats, and un-interesting song structure, it is certainly worth of a listen.

If you like The Crystal Method, you probably already have this. If you're a newbie to breakbeat, get this. If you're a hardcore breakbeat fan, give a few tracks a listen, and see if you like them.

Some other stuff:
The Deluxe Edition of Vegas comes with an extra 10 tracks. 8 of these tracks are remixes, one of them is a 1993 demo version of Comin' Back, while the final track is a live performance of Vapour Trail.

-Kalem

Snø (Artist)

This is his Album he's working on.

Hey guys, quick post here, I'd like to introduce to you an experimental, emerging artist called Snø.

Nothing much is known about this artist yet, in fact I'm not even sure if he's on Wikipedia (at least I think its a he).

So he is a music artist, and hopefully, we'll have some more info on him in the next few months. Maybe some tracks, who knows? Seriously this guy's a bit of a mystery (like Danger).

We'll keep you guys updated :)

-Renegade

EDIT: His Album that he's working on is called DEMOS.

EDIT: Sorry about the picture quality, but its hard to find a picture of his album since he's so rare on the internet.