Music
reviews
BY Peter Simons
DeadMau5
2
Review of DeadMau5's new album "Album title goes here"
Deadmau5 is at it again, his latest delve into the world of music has provided us with yet another blissful archive of progressive house songs, facilitating hours of sweat filled, hormone induced evenings for many a teenager. Unlike previous albums such as his 2009 album “For lack of a better name” or “4X4=12” This album is less of the Percussive and focuses more on progressive minimalistic ideas as well as significantly increased utilisation of Triangle and Saw waves, as well as application of both clipping and distortion effects.
I have to admit it; I am rather in awe at the talent and skill which is demonstrated in this album. The heterophonic textures are deeper than that found in most other Progressive house and dance styles, meaning that it is almost impossible for one to get bored of this album; once you are fully familiar with one layer of texture you unlock a hidden realm, another blanket of pitched resonance or bass line synthesiser. The progression is slow, and the tracks are long which gives Zimmerman plenty of time in which he is able to fully develop his ideas and take his songs to new heights.
On the contrary, as mentioned by Einstein, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is demonstrated in this piece of work by Deadmau5 as although there is plenty of time for this Progressive house to progress, rather agonisingly, at times it does not. The track “Closer” is by far one of the biggest victims of this overzealous dilution. The song drifts from bar to bar, with a very clear sense of structure, however the song could have the same effect if everything phrase had half of its current bar length. The main motif is repeated such a large number of times, that if I were to receive ten pence for every time it was played, I could fund the elimination of a large portion of the World’s poverty. This song is as irritating as my eight year old brother, I suppose the song could be justifiable if it actually went somewhere. Just as an uplifter suggests that it is about to progress, the same 8 bar question and answer melody is repeated yet again, for what must be at least the God-knows-how-manyth time. All of the build up and tension in this song is then simply brushed aside for the next overused set of motif, drum and bassline assortment, which I suppose curbs the boredom for about 90 seconds, at which point it inevitably returns.
This review is sounding more and more hypocritical, as humans we are designed to have our imperfections, and realistically the only flaw which I can find is this issue of snail paced progression. From a technical aspect, this album is immaculate; there aren’t any glaring errors- or any errors at all for that matter. The synths are well formed with nicely arranged harmonics. The use of background noise adds a real atmosphere to the songs, little additives such as futuristic Sci-Fi noises like the ones found in “Sleepless” or the use of strings as found in many of the other song.
Deadmau5 is by far the leader of his field, and although “>Album title goes here<” is perhaps substandard in comparison to his other work, It’s far better than the growls and gurgles produced by other artists such what skrillex and knife party are producing.
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