JOLLY - review added 23rd July 2009
Album Review: Forty Six Minutes, Twelve Seconds Of Music (2009)
For fans of: Alternative Rock... and progressive MUSE-ings
Jolly hails from NYC and is Anadale (guitars, vocals), Louis Abramson (drums), Joe Reilly (keys) and Mike Rudin (bass).
They list amongst their influences Depeche Mode, Radiohead, Meshuggah and Type O Negative. The music reflects that. It's deep, wandering stuff with outrageously heavy interludes and ambient, introspective moments. The end result is reminiscent of Muse using prehistorically powerful amps and recreational drugs.
The cunningly titled Forty Six Minutes, Twelve Seconds Of Music is the band's first full length release. Apparently the recording contains something called Binaural Tones - I quote, "proven to enrich feelings of happiness, focus, creativity and relaxation through inaudible changes in audio frequencies." It's deep stuff, but whether it makes the album any better is open for debate.
The tracks on Forty Six Minutes... blend into each other like sugar and coffee in a warm mug. There are no real stand out songs, just a period of noise followed by quiet... then some more noise. The title sums it up perfectly: this is a single entity of music. It's mesmerising in places but lacks cohesion and fails to find definitive reasons for you to come back for more. It wants to be both a chillout album and a riotously heavy noise fest, but ends up somewhere in the middle.
As an exercise in experimentation you have to commend Jolly for their efforts. It's a debate whether Forty Six Minutes, Twelve Seconds Of Music is absolute genius or musical disaster. It's something of a mess to my ears - too much like a mad version of Muse - but there are people who will fall head over heels in love with it. Put it on in the background during a séance or a bout of psychosis and I'm sure it will all make sense.
Check out... Those Binaural Tones. Happy yet?
Track List:
1. Escape From DS-3
2. Renfaire
3. Peril
4. Red Sky Locomotive
5. We Had An Agreement
6. Downstream
7. Carousel Of Whale
8. Solstice
9. Inside The Womb
Label: ProgRock Records
Artist's website(s): MySpace
