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Band: Skin Contact Album: The Fine Line Album Year: 2007 Label: ?? Genre(s): he called it "drum and noise" Website: http://www.skincontact.com
rating: 4/10
I don’t know anything about Skin Contact except that he likened his music to that of Monstrum Sepsis. I’ve not overly familiar with MS but “The Fine Line” reminds me of what I do remember of the MS album I have heard. Maybe a little too much.
I can’t say “The Fine Line” really did anything for me. I couldn’t get into it. The mixing and production are done well…sort of. Every song is the same tempo and more or less the same collection of sounds. They are decent sounds, but hearing them in every song really takes away the 'cool-ness' they could've had. All of the tracks are too light, upbeat and dare I describe them as…“happy”. Too much so to satisfy my tastes anyway. To be honest it could be the same song for 7 tracks. So yeah, as I mentioned above it sounds like Monstrum Sepsis. Light synths over some quasi interesting and very nearly dynamic beats. Unfortunately the synths all sound like bland VSTs or Reason synths and fail to leave a mark on my memory, and the beats are all too far in the background to make them stand out or to bring focus to the intricacies they may contain. The bass kick is too goddamn light and there is not enough crunchy noise (read: there is no crunchinessL) The synths are monotonous and bland and too far up front in the mix. The songs are all directionless and sound like a series of random noises and pieces stuck together for no particular reason in order to achieve no particular purpose. I can’t find any emotion or drive within this music.
The music finally starts to pick up by the time Collisions rolls around; Some memorable synths finally appear along with a nice warm atmospheric pad. The drums are nice and interesting, but when you focus on them you realize that they are little more than the same breakbeat looped over and over and over. It starts off well, but it soon falls victim to the same nebulous and directionless that ruins its predecessors. The album ends with “Over” which just sounds like a completely random assortment of noises, clicks and sounds which is neither innovative nor interesting. It’s not worth reading about so I’ll spare you. Leave the random clicks to Xanopticon.
The bottom line is that Skin Contact’s “The Fine Line” is a decent pick if you’re looking for something light and pseudo-complicated. It is neither groundbreaking nor unique, but it’s a mediocre imitation of the bands that pioneered this sound (i.e. Monstrum Sepsis). Skin Contact has potential and if he works on song structure and evolution/devolution within a song (peaks and valleys, and so forth) then I think he could make some very interesting material. If this were a free download I would say go ahead and check it out, but it’s not and I would not spend my money on it. All in all, I’d say just get Gridlock’s Formless and call it a day.
-[.d4n b4rr3tt.]
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