| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Track Structure | 8 |
| Interest | 9 |
| Melody | 8 |
| Performance | 8 |
| Lyrics | 0 |
| Enjoyment | 8 |
| Recording Quality | 10 |
| Commercial Appeal | 7 |
| Overall | 8.3 |
I was going to review The Pheasant Has No Agenda, but since that was written upon my orders, Mr Z has asked me to choose another track, so I selected Familiar Failings because I really like the title. Now I am completely out of my comfort zone here since I am not a big fan of electronic music, but one must test one's limitations.
This track starts with a kick drum that would rip your teeth out, It's a very pleasant sound and you can immediately recognise the signs of a well recorded piece of music. This is only reinforced by the range of synth sounds that Tedd has employed for this track. To my ears, the synth sounds have been chosen pretty carefully to make sure that each range of frequencies is present, correct and accounted for. This would possibly lead a less experienced person to suffer from mixing issues due to the lack of space, but Tedd copes with that admirably well, and everything is crystal clear. The synths sound immense individually as well, which is quite a difficult thing to achieve. This is more like an exercise in frequency mathematics than a piece of electronic music.
The melodies played by what I'll comfortably describe as the lead instruments are catchy enough and after only a few listens have lodged themselves firmly into your head like little electronic squatters refusing to move from their new found homes. The bass sound, whilst deep, clear and pulsating, does tend to get a bit old. This is probably due to the fact that it seems to only play the one note throughout the entire piece. Perhaps this drone-like bass part is designed to carry the track forward leaving vast swathes of musical freedom for the other parts. I'm not sure how the thought process for this genre works but I would've personally liked to have heard a few changes in the bass part, but perhaps that's a genre specific thing to electronica.
Bass part aside, the rest of the track is almost like an adventure. It's constantly changing, instruments dropping in and out, drums stopping and starting, melodies changing and plenty of things going on in the background to keep even the closest of listeners on their toes. Specifically, I have to mention the synth work at 1:48 into the track. An awesome sound with a total disregard for everything and decides to go completely ape. Especially pleasing to my ear in this section was the synth glissando, with that growling sound. That was the highlight of the track for me. That tiny section in the track summed the whole performance thing up for me. The musicianship, or programming if it's not played on real touchable synths, is pretty much flawless.
Structurally, I found it a bit difficult to follow if truth be told, but from what I have heard of electronic music, there really isn't supposed to be a specific structure. Just change the thing when it starts to sound boring would appear to be the rule of thumb. Tedd doesn't even let it get that far with this, it changes rapidly and pretty much lost me in my first listen. The more I listened to it, the more I sort of understood where he was going with it, but that's probably more my inexperience of electronica than any wrong doing on Mr Z's part.
So, to the final section where one draws one's conslusions.
This is a completely and utterly bizarre track, which can only be expected from Tedd really. The whole feel of it and the energy it contains would almost guarantee that it did well in clubs around the world if the dj's got their hands on it. As for genuine commercial appeal, I'm not sure about the whole electronic market, but it wouldn't sound out of place on the radio at 9pm on a Saturday night to gee people up for a night on the town. Overall, I surprisingly enjoyed this, not because I think Tedd's music is crap (apparently he makes crap music so you don't have to) but because I generally feel lost and disinterested listening to electronic music. So, check it out for yourselves and prepare to be dazzled by some synthesized class.
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