2007-05-24
"Alex Delivery" should be very glad that I still use public transportation. It just saved them from getting a lukewarm review.
After a few listenings on various different CD players, home and car stereos I declared this album to be "nice, few good ideas, but nothing more". It was the ride on the bus that made me experience the album through headphones and eventually save it from the chill words I had in mind for it.
"Star destroyer" is a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde kind of album. In regular speakers you will find it a nice avant-garde, not fully daring, with hints of industrial album; Yet not using is full potential. It's the headphones that transform this pleasant yet bizarre Dr. into the monstrosity that hides inside all along; Very avant-garde, psychedelic, and based on enormous depths.
"Star destroyer" is a six long tracks piece. Having six songs, in which 5 go over the 9 minuets barrier as a debut album is a very ambitious effort. Each one of the tracks stands on its own, but is also tightly tied up with the album's musical concept. The songs are very well composed, laying layers upon layers of acoustic instruments, as well as electronic, digital instruments, and a large range of bizarre noises.
The thematic line that goes throughout the songs is based on their atmosphere. They manage to keep their dark-from-the-deep kind of feeling in their rhythmic sections as well as in their melancholic ambient moments. Maybe it's the chilling cymbals and different bells and chimes that sound like a ghost whispering on a dark night. Maybe it's the keyboards setting the tone for that dark night. But it's all happening as they morbidly dance between what is sharp and painful to what is easing and soothing.
The way Alex Delivery present their songs varies from rich arrangements in tracks like "Sheath – Wet", to the indie oriented "Komad", which goes from slow and nice to a chain-saw sound. "Scotty", the only short track, is spiced up with industrial à la Reznor with noises bombing in, covering the quiet vocals; the beauty and the beast.
The guys on Alex Delivery could've taken the credit for an excellent debut album, but they stumble as their incredible depth was hidden because of the bad sound work. By not fronting every good melody, they give themselves a unique characteristic which determine the essence of the song instead of it's obvious direction, creating a new depth of adventure in each time. I can only hope that the re-mastered trend will get to them too, and they'll re-release this album with the quality it deserves.
Roy Povarchik
