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Album Details

• Artist: Kiseleff
• Album: A Sound Seal
• Label: Scolpaig Records
• Year of Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: iamparadox on 2011-04-07

Braveheart on psychedelics? Thought that might get your attention! That's the first thing that popped into my head when reading about and listening to Kiseleff and their new release, A Sound Seal. The album is an artistic attempt to modernize the past. The Scottish past of their ancestors traveling to America 180 years ago, to be more specific. This was inspired by the death of a grandparent. Did I mention their music is like a history lesson in 1980s synth pop? Yes, read on my friends.

Listeners will recognize the New Wave vibe that the band conjures up. Imagine a cocktail mix of Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails blended together in a swirl of sound. The songs are crisp, refreshing, and may remind you of Joy Division or Bauhaus but more danceable: the next generation Cure. This is explained in part by the duo's process and time of turning concept into reality, and the era when they really started getting into music. Originally envisioned as an idea for a movie script or novel, it eventually evolved into its'current concoction.

"Quicksilver Universe" begins the list of tracks with soothing tones and is equal parts dark and disco. According to press materials we received, "Savannah" is about the mixed feelings of a 20 year old leaving home with dreams of finding happiness, balanced by sad thoughts of those they are leaving behind. Sadness is dealt with through defiance. "Tightrope" captures the euphoria of arriving in the U.S. and building a new life that embraces the future. "Chaos" is my favorite cut and grabs your attention from the first few seconds it comes on. It's both ominous and optimistic, haunting and hopeful. It represents the rest of the record, an ebb and flow of emotion.

To sum it all up, this is one of the best cds by a band I was not previously familiar with before hand. While the record's themes are from their ancestral tree, the music it would seem is from the tape player of Doc Brown's Delorean.

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