I've mostly lost faith in the whole Ant-Zen/Hands thing. Recently,though, two albums were released that nearly restored my entire faithin the style of music as a whole: Azure Skies (reviewed last week) andTarmvred's "Subfusc."Right from the start, "Subfusc" appealed to my tastes - most of thesongs are quite long (I'm a long-song freak). But what really sets itapart is the fact that it's written really damned well. You will findno contrived distorted dancefloor songs here: the beats are there, andin full force, but they never slip into the four-on-the-floor trap andthey will never make you think you're listening to Noisex.
Which brings me to the point that Tarmvred sounds a lot like an evolvedWinterk¹lte. The structure and approach is kind of the same, but I dareto say that Tarmvred pulls it off better... Nor is Tarmvred afraid tobreak out the Sidstation, and drop in a phat old-skool C64 melody atthe end of track one. The whole album has little cool bits like thesein it, that break away from the cliches and make wonderful use of new,interesting sounds.
The album gets slightly redundant at points (some of the beginningparts of the longer songs are unnecessary)... but this is still awonderful album, especially for anyone who was listening to Ant-Zen afew years ago and then got tired of the club music crap. But hey, theclub kids should like it too: this is something for everyone. Get it.
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