Cassette Review: Census of Hallucinations "As Within, So Without" (ZyNg tapes)

[£5 // Edition of 100 // http://music.zyngtapes.co.uk/album/as-within-so-without]

"As Within, So Without" begins with long, dreamy guitar notes with drums.    Waves begin crashing in the background and it has me California dreamin'.    This becomes somewhat psychedelic, which was only a matter of time given the name Census of Hallucinations and as the vocals come out this begins to remind me of something from the classic rock genre, some Pink Floyd perhaps.    But the influences don't stop there and this one only gets better as it goes on.

There are spoken word bits over the music as well as singing and this can be anything from the modern sounds of Blue October to the older sounds of Johnny Rotten via Public Image Ltd.     It can be anything from rocking like ZZ Top to instrumental like a jam band, but man, there are some great guitar solos in here.    With all of the melodies Census of Hallucinations shows here that these songs are anything but one dimensional.

The lyrics can vary from song to song, but there is one song where he is literally doing math.   It's not so much counting as multiplying and then adding numbers to make nine.   This is done in the way that 9 x 5 = 45 and then 4 + 5 = 9.    It's somewhere between School House Rock telling us that 3 is the magic number and that movie starring Ryan Reynolds where we learned that koalas control the weather.

Overall, I love this cassette because at any given point you can begin to think you've got it figured out and then it turns a corner and shows you just how wrong you were.     Others would simply be classic rock in a modern world or a jam band or psychedelic, but Census of Hallucinations likes to keep it interesting and I really respect that.