Typhoon
Offerings
Roll Call Records
Review: Mitchell Emery
Those looking for some
good old fashioned rock
music to lose their mind
to and switch off with,
skip ahead now, because
this one really isn’t for
you.
If, however, you are
looking for an album that
is challenging, audacious,
thoughtful and complex,
then Typhoon’s latest
offering, the aptly named
Offerings, could well
be the sonic challenge
you’re looking for.
Concept albums are
about as far from current
Stray Train
Blues From Hell
SAOL
Review: Ash Crowson
When you get a com-
ment from your Editor
saying she would be
interested in your opin-
ion on a bluesy band,
you can’t really refuse.
I love some dirty blues
rock and she knows it,
so I knew it would be
news as is possible, being
more commonly created
by bands who use time
signatures that resemble
complex mathematics.
Yet when the concept is
set around the idea of
what a human being is
without memory or a
sense of origin, you’re
going to turn some
heads. Once those heads
are turned, then begins
the dangerous game of
creating something that
is deep and intellectually
stimulating, without fall-
ing into a pit of pretence
and self-indulgence.
Which is where Typhoon
do occasionally fall short.
Overall, the album
managed to paint a
sonic landscape of
fear and a sense of a
complete absence of
self-identity within its protagonist, with chilling
vocal performances and
sparse, surprisingly basic
instrumentation, often
heavily focused around
a single acoustic guitar,
with everything else
being no more than an
artistic addition (akin
to a ‘Happy Little Tree’
added to a Bob Ross
painting). Tracks like
opening numbers, ‘Weak’
and ‘Rorschach’ come
straight out of the gates
with a wonderful Indie
quality, which sets the
tone for the rest of the
album, but often lack the
urgency common to the
genre.
This is by no means a
negative, but it does feel
like some songs could
have laid out the same
message in a slightly
shorter time frame, with particular reference hear
being to closing track.
The track titled ‘Sleep’
closes the alb