Tuesday, October 20, 2015

CD Review: Ever So Android "Disconnect"


For me, listening to Ever So Android has been a fascinating experience because they combine various styles of music that I both enjoy and am not so familiar with to craft one new sound which they can call their own.   On some easy levels (lazy journalism) this could easily just be called "electronic rock", but that feels so generic of a term now anyway that I'm not sure it would hold any meaning in the sense that two people who tend to think alike could still interpret that as two very different sounds.

While there are certainly more elements of rock in here than pop, it is worth noting that this has darker portions to it that I'd like to put under a "dark pop" tag.   This darkness can also come out in the fact that I can hear some Stabbing Westward type of synth mixed into these songs.    Other bands along the lines of rock which I can find within these songs include Boom Said Thunder, Dead Sara and even that big arena feel of someone such as Muse.    Static skips with beats have me thinking of this as just as much being mechanical and industrial in the delivery as anything else I've heard and it's just such a solid sound within this aspect of it.

Now taking that all into account this would be an accomplishment in and of itself-- it's enough to ask from a band and while it has been all that other bands might have delivered in past albums Ever So Android has set a new standard here because they have taken this and expanded upon it.    There is a certain amount of soul in these songs and it carry over to the blues as well though only within slight instances do I think of it as being country.    A grand example of this is in the fourth song, "Better Days", which even has the lyrics of a blues song.   In this way I am reminded of the music of Tracy Chapman though whether that includes the vocals as well is uncertain.

One of my favorite musicians for quite a while now has been P!nk and I know she seems like other pop stars or something and so people will put this stigma on her, like it's not "cool" for me to listen to her or whatever, but I watched a television show about her once and she was writing songs with Linda Perry and that made me happy.   Within these songs I can hear a lot of P!nk in the vocals.   It's just in the way which they are belted out here and it is so perfect.    Now if anybody out there happens to like P!nk but feels embarrassed admitting that they listen to her they can listen to Ever So Android guilt free!

There are musical aspects of this which remind me of P!nk as well, and as far as another influence of mine that I will sing along with and not feel any shame is Alanis Morissette.   At some point in my life I realized I knew all of these Alanis songs from the radio and just finally bought her greatest hits CD.    Now this is all done within that same rock and video game/computer type of feel as well.   I'm not going to be so bold as to make any claims of combining existing artists but someone might say that this is what it might sound like if P!nk was to take over vocal duties for Nine Inch Nails ala the "With Teeth" era, which I actually quite enjoyed and feel is often underrated.

That Alanis singing comes out in the song "How High", which is more in the chorus line of "How high will I jump for you?" than in the most excellent line of "I don't know what's worse anymore- that you think for me or that I can't on my own".   This goes into a song that has that definite Tracy Chapman feel to me ("Good Intentions") and then in the tenth spot "Dirty Fingers" opens with some synth ala Stabbing Westward and then turns into some form of Alanis.

My best advice for you is to put this one on and crank it up loud-- really loud.   It's not that the ingredients I've described for you have come to stand side by side, on a song by song basis, but rather they are all mixed together in a way that goes above and beyond something even PJ Harvey has done because this doesn't even remind me directly of PJ Harvey that's just the closest comparison I can make-- that's how spectacular this is.    "Disconnect" is one of my favorite albums right now and I can already tell you that it will certainly be with me for the rest of my life.





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