JESS
For week number two, we get to enjoy a bit of Russian culture, reviewing a band called Narkotiki. Their new album, Планета Любовь, meaning Planet Of Love, was just released, which sent them to the top of the hyped artist list on Last.fm. This album, a disco / rap / pop / electronica hybrid, was quite the surprise to me. From their wiki on their Last.fm page, it says “filled with extreme levels of joy and humor.” Reading that alone made me very apprehensive about this listen, as I don't typically enjoy either joy or humor in my music, and I dislike disco and rap. However, I really did enjoy this, despite all odds.
The vocals were what I was most afraid of before I listened to it, because I am an avid hater of rap. In reality, it's not so much rapping at is just quickly talking (blah blah all rap is that way blah blah). For the most part, there really isn't very much punctuation on very many of the words like most rap, and these guys aren't obviously aren't black either, so it doesn't even sound very rap-like. Even on the few tracks that are close to the typical rap sound feel totally different because of the instrumentation below the vocals. But the vocals aren't just rap, either. On some of the songs, there are parts that resemble a shoegaze style of singing, which worked well with the disco elements. I wish I could mention something about the lyrics, but I don't speak Russian. At all. I can't even count in Russian, or even say hello. The track titles, however are standard pop rock fare, featuring tracks like “Give It To Me,” “Falls In Love,” and “Free.” On the other hand, there are songs like “I Drink The Blood,” “Joseph Kobzon,” and “Punk (Less)” that make me want to know what the actual song is about. Sadly, I will probably never know.
For this album, I'm not going to make fun of how it's not technical or how it's the most generic thing ever, unlike last week's review. The genres of both disco and rap, the two main ingredients of Narkotiki, are not particularly known for doing anything out of the ordinary either, for that matter. However, Narkotiki actually does experiment between songs, going from a 80s style video game soundtrack to a punk riff to a rap beat, and those are only a few examples of the different styles going on throughout this album. The instruments compliment the vocals well, and never feel out of place.
The biggest problem this album has is that the songs tend to run together. Since it stays upbeat the whole time, and the vocals seem like the same lines over and over, nothing really stuck out for me. The actual song writing itself was good, but it would've been nice for it be changed up a little between tracks.
Score: 8/10
NP: mewithoutYou - It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright
BRYAN
I've got AP tests this week, so I'm going to be very brief so I can get back to *ahem* studying (Dead Space). The subject of this week's review is the last.fm Most Hyped album, something by a Russian band called Narkotiki(?). Right from the start, I knew that this weeks review would not be as mind-numbingly awful as last week. Just the fact that the band is Russian provided an interesting listening experience. Having said that, however, the entire album was overly upbeat and peppy, or at least the music was. I have absolutely no idea what they were saying but I doubt that they were singing about death, destruction or any of a number of depressing topics, especially considering that the one track title I could read was “La la la”.
I would classify Narkotiki as a Techno + Disco + Rap fusion. The vocals, the occasional sampling and even bits of the pounding beat (yo) form the rap portion of the fusion genre. The majority of the instumentation (Synthesizers) is most obviously techno based. The disco aspect comes from much of the chord progression and beat structure. Their genre is by far the most interesting part of the entire album and is, unfortunately, as far as their innovation goes. Underneath the intrigue of the fusion genre, the music is written in 4/4 throughout with the signature techno pounding out quarter notes underneath and absolutely nothing remarkable happening in the drum machine. The lyrics were, as far as I could tell, not overly repetitive, but again it's kind of difficult to judge this aspect of the music. The vocals were, however, VERY monotonous, but this has come to be expected from rap.
Another plus to this album is that the songs were original and I could actually tell when one song ended and the next began due to the slight variations in style, musical theme and choice in voices for the synthesizers. The only thing that stayed entirely constant throughout was the vocals and the pounding beats(not so fresh beats, yo). This was a nice break from the usual generic, repetitive pop that our ears are constantly assaulted with. All in all, the genre is innovative and somewhat interesting, but overall the album is unremarkable, although thankfully not excessively repetitive
SCORE: 4.3333(and on and on)/10
N.P.: Acid Bath – When The Kite String Pops
