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Sudden Ensemble, "AM 11"
Lo-fi guitar feedback, monotone lyrical chatter, and bland instrumental (amateur at best) cycles do not make for a good record. As best as I can tell, Doreen Kirchner and Wayne Garcia really want to be as hip as they can be; instead they end up sounding like a couple of confused kids with nothing to sing about and no melody to drive their music forward. I don't need a melody to be interested in the music, but AM 11 doesn't have anything going for it otherwise.
There's no interesting production, no involved guitar work, and Animal for the Muppet Show would've been a much better drummer for this band; at least he's a wild and crazy guy. The drumming on this record can only be compared to the sound of a beginning drummer in grade school: sloppy, awkward, and somewhat confused about how to use the bass pedal and the snare at the same time. And they both sound so damned emotionless: "The Drop off Process" (their opening tune, no less!) feels as if it could be the soundtrack to some twenty-somethings getting messed up on heroin. There's no emphasis on anything, their voices sound dim and faded out, and everything meshes into one big and milky haze of dirty public restrooms. None of the tunes really sound different from each other, either. After a little bit I became confused as to what track I was listening to, but I was too damned lazy to get up and check what the CD player was telling me. The pale and dismal delivery of everything on this record had seeped into my bones all I wanted to do was lay around and die in a pit of my own waste. There's probably a grand total of thirty seconds on this record where a combination of drums and guitar come together to make something nice happen and then my eyes get all red and puffy and I realize it's damn near the same song as before. Put a needle in the old vein, grab a few bottles of cheap beer, break out the cigarettes and prepare to die slowly with Sudden Ensemble; if the drugs aren't lethal, they're absolutely dull attitude will be.
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