{"id":874,"date":"2018-01-08T18:43:32","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T16:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/?p=874"},"modified":"2018-01-08T18:43:32","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T16:43:32","slug":"scandroid-review-its-not-the-past-exactly-but-it-sounds-like-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/scandroid-review-its-not-the-past-exactly-but-it-sounds-like-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Scandroid Review: It\u2019s Not The Past, Exactly, But It Sounds Like The Future."},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, Klayton.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Klayton, a ridiculously prolific artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A man of many styles that still manages to enthrall and inspire even to this day, twenty years after his Circle of Dust debut. In his various guises, he has penned industrial music, more melodic songs, slightly more metal sounds and then some.<\/p>\n

For this album, he travels to his roots. To that time in the eighties when New Wave ruled supreme and no one could see anything but synthesizers for miles around.<\/p>\n

The kings of this genre have to be Depeche Mode, of course, but many bands followed in their footsteps or tried their approaches to greater or lesser success. And Klayton – as Scandroid – has learned from those teachings, taking the sound of the old songs and infusing them with his own slightly modern touch.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Neon, neon everywhere. A homage to the 80’s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The record starts with an ominous soundscape in the form of the song \u201c2517.\u201d If I could say one thing about this, it\u2019s that I love the throb of it. The sheer, sultry flow of it and I kind of wish he would go in this direction a little more – just lean into that sort of sound that surrounds you all the way from your feet to your head. Lots of the rest of the album isn\u2019t like this at all, and it\u2019s a shame, too, because there\u2019s so much sense of place in this opening song that it\u2019s hard to parse it apart from the what happens next.<\/p>\n

And what happens next is a reminder of just how nuanced dance music used to be during the eighties. Klayton pulls out all the stops as the next few songs pass by in a blur of four-to-the-floor beats and fine, swirling synths that play to the strengths of the songs they\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

Some of these songs aren\u2019t new – and, in fact, that\u2019s par for the course with nearly all of Scandroid\u2019s output to date. He will put out little feelers. Little teasers of what\u2019s to come and then incorporate those into the full-scale project, so if you\u2019re remotely into his music, there\u2019s a good chance you heard \u201cSalvation Code\u201d long before it found its way onto this album. [The same is true of \u201cDatastream\u201d and \u201cEmpty Streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
A great, moody back cover.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What is new is both good and underdeveloped at the same time. While the SONGS themselves are strong and provide a lot of oomph to the cause, the actual flesh and blood of the album – the thematic tie-together – feels a little disjointed and bereft of flesh. Which is a pity. Scandroid is more about sound and soundscapes than trying to tell a cohesive, exact narrative as might have been suggested by the little story that dropped before the album went live. So there\u2019s hints of ideas here that could be expounded upon. A robot named ATOM 7K. Another named E.V.E. Red, searching for the Salvation Code in amongst the ruins of the past and the Neo-Tokyo cityscape towering over him. The idea of a Datastream that\u2019s a little like a Matrix or a more modern internet looming above it all.<\/p>\n

All of this is wonderfully evocative, but it never does enough with the actual storyline. If you were here because you were hoping that this would be a Klayton record that\u2019s also a concept album, well…there\u2019s hints of that. Just not enough to make it stick.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re here for great beats and complex, many-layered synths, though, well…you\u2019ve come to the right place. Klayton treats the eighties and eighties-sounding music with obvious reverence and respect, making an album which he says he has wanted to make for MANY years now. Anyone who appreciates that sort of music will love what he has done here – right up to the point where he has included just the instrumentals for those that are solely into that aural experience without the vocals layered on top, though, I do have to say, if there\u2019s ONE song that should be heard in it\u2019s vocal format, then I\u2019d have to suggest \u201cProbots and the Robophobes.\u201d [Fittingly, this is a \u201cScandroid\u201d track \u201cfeaturing\u201d \u201cCircle of Dust.\u201d]<\/p>\n

As for the visual output, this is mostly great with Klayton. While much of the production is very low-key, it\u2019s JUST low-key enough to fit the ambiance of the music that he\u2019s made for it, so the lyric videos for songs like \u201cNeo-Tokyo\u201d are spot on.<\/p>\n

The only really bad spots on display here are the slight misfires – and there\u2019s two on this particular record. On it\u2019s own and by itself, the video for and the cover of \u201cShout\u201d are OK. The video\u2019s more interesting because of it\u2019s midway point, but the song doesn\u2019t feel…reinvented enough? Scandroid has now done a few covers like this and of the ones that exist, the most interesting has been the \u201cStar Wars\u201d theme. Sadly, \u201cShout\u201d just seems like a pale imitation of a formerly powerful song. If I\u2019d had my way, I would have replaced this on the album with something more Scandroid derived.<\/p>\n

The other very mild misfire isn\u2019t so much a musical one as a visual one. \u201cEden\u201d is a fantastic song that sends off the record in a great way, but as a video, it falls completely flat. There\u2019s something awfully barren and awfully tame about the visuals on offer that make it underwhelming. But if you NEVER watch the video, you\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n

Should you buy this album?<\/p>\n

If you liked the music of the eighties and you\u2019re enjoying the NewRetroWave revival that\u2019s going around right now, then I believe this is a wonderful choice. It is also a great way to ease into that particular scene if you\u2019re new to it.<\/p>\n

If you hated the \u201cfake sounding\u201d synths that \u201cshouldn\u2019t be allowed in bands\u201d in the eighties, because GUITARS ARE REAL INSTRUMENTS, MAN. Then…yeah. You\u2019re not going to like this at all.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re just tired of modern pop and you want to branch into something that\u2019s LIKE pop, but has more interesting stuff going on, then I\u2019d look into this, too. But I\u2019d listen to a couple of songs before buying in. Songs I recommend are: \u201c2517,\u201d \u201cProbots and the Robophobes\u201d and \u201cSalvation Code.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, Klayton. A man of many styles that still manages to enthrall and inspire even to this day, twenty years after his Circle of Dust debut. In his various guises, he has penned industrial music, more melodic songs, slightly more metal sounds and then some. For this album, he travels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[57,47,345],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878,"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions\/878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greywolfe.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}