Review: A Lot Like Birds - No Place

Trying to describe this album is… difficult. It is certainly different, unique and captures you almost immediately. An eerie album, filled with an entire mix of strange, technical weirdness, it grabs you almost immediately. Something that you must be open-minded about when listening to it as things do get very weird.

Not that it is a bad thing, in fact, it is the opposite. It is something beautiful and different, an album that will stick out to you, striking and intriguing, an entirely different sound, one that has never been explored before hand. It is going to be difficult to explain this album but, here goes.

It starts on the opening track, ‘In Trances’. From the offset, the strange, eerie feel of this album is established. This opener does actually feel like you’re in a trance too, making this all the more strange. Imagine taking acid, now imagine that feeling without actually taking any form of recreational drugs. Yeah, that is what you get from this. The album moves into the track ‘No Nature’ which is even stranger than the previous track. It’s like Punk, Post-Hardcore and System Of A Down has been thrown together to create a weird, technical blend of experimental post-punk metal. Well, at least that is how I can explain it.

However, although strange, this album has a unique beauty about it. It intrigues you and outstands you, both at the same time. The album makes great use of rock and metal, infusing rock riffs, technical bass and guitar with odd drumming and a perfect blend between hardcore punk vocals and intriguing rock vocals.

Each track is different, getting more and more unique and eerie, whilst maintaining its haunting beauty that lasts throughout the album. Tracks such as ‘Next To Ungodliness’, Connector’ and ‘Kuroi Ledge’ are stand outs here, tracks that are so mesmerizing that you have no idea what to think about them. The closing track, ‘Shaking of the Frame’, serves the album justice, being just as creepy and yet still just as effective as its predecessor tracks.

This album is so mind-bending, you have no idea how to approach it. It’s like an anomaly has entered your mind, like a whole new entity has just taken over your body. It is creepy but yet beautiful. Well-crafted and put together, it is something to truly behold and to be astonished by. Mixed so well, making sure that it maintains its beauty and eeriness whilst being careful to make sure you can hear every little detail that is going on, it amazes you, triggering every sense in your body. It has a profound effect on you, something you can’t describe. But yet you love it
for being what it is. It is unique.

I already stated I had no idea how to explain this album, nothing can help do it justice. With all its creepy, technical, up-beat beauty, it grips you and doesn’t loosen its grip on you until it is finished. This is an album that will make you feel so many things. Angry, happy, confused, maybe even uneasy. But that is the beauty of it. It feels like a huge daydream, an endless trance, but in music form. Take your time to listen to it, you’ll somehow find something to love about this.

It’s worth the listen for its beauty alone but also based on the effect it has on you and on how much care and thought has been put into such an astonishing album. Listen and make up your own mind. It’s all I can say because everyone will feel something differently about this album. A stand-out of the year, something that will stay with me for a while. Just eerily beautiful and I love it.

9.5/10

- Asa

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AuthorJordan Mohler
Tagsa lot like birds, no place
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GENE HOGLAN Extends “The Atomic Clock: The Clock Strikes Two” DVD Pre-Order

GENE HOGLAN is pleased to announce that due to the extended hard work his team is doing to make his upcoming DVD, The Atomic Clock-The Clock Strikes Two, the best it can be, he is extending the pre-order period. That’s right; pre-orders are now extended through December 1, 2013— just in time for the holidays! The Atomic Clock: The Clock Strikes Two is available for pre-sale with SEVEN awesome package options at http://www.hoglanindustries.com/Fan_Packages.html (see below for details).

Gene adds, “I am very excited to say that in my upcoming DVD, The Atomic Clock-The Clock Strikes Two, I will be including songs from none other than… DEATH. That’s right folks, I will be performing ‘Overactive Imagination’ and ‘The Philosopher’. I hope you enjoy!”

This is adding to the already killer listing of tracks that Gene will perform on the DVD:

Testament-Rise Up

Meldrum-A Toast To Romance

Brendon Small’s Galaktikon-On My Way

Strapping Young Lad-Skeksis

Gene recently revealed a new teaser video the DVD, exclusively via Modern Drummer.

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AuthorJordan Mohler
TagsThe Atomic Clock: The Clock Strikes Two, gene hoglan, death
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