ALBUM REVIEW: Sights Distorted – ‘Last Light’
Sights Distorted have created an album with no compromise and no half-measures.
Album Reviews | Released
| By AP Childs
Sights Distorted
‘Last Light’
(Unsigned)
****
The Sights Distorted debut is an underground fanfare to fellow electronic inspired subterraneans, the call to keep on keeping on, as it attempts to combine visceral and melodic contrasts within its sonic layers to underpin the chaos at the heart of the modern experience. A post-modern, intertextual, retro piece perhaps. Music is rarely original, but when the future and the past are layered correctly something magical usually happens.
“Last Light”, employs a cinematic musical backdrop with a lyrical narrative to explore both the positive and negative ends of human hope. Whether the melodrama of this record is the group’s way of making the mainstream leave them alone. Or this is a genuine artist’s statement on how relevant good old-fashioned electronica still is, it is not clear. Whatever the case, the record fizzles with the energy of the city, and the night.
The starkness of orchestral opener, ‘First Light’ intimates something more in tune with the dark end of the morning rather than anything that is close to brightness. Disembodied echoes and picked strings, packed with dissonance and a depressed air, are heard as day eventually breaks into something rather more soothing, on an ambient level at least.
But do not get comfortable; the album takes on a darker Reznor-esqe side. Somber tones and melodies, and random techno noises create an element of unease. Dissonant sounds are utilised, as well as the start/stop nature of the beats, and work to keep the listener on edge.
Darker synth sounds continue with ‘Linear’that shimmy with a pop techno groove, and random noises scream for the heart of the city. Your hackles rise whilst your ears are mired in the underground.
As soon as the words on ‘Wired’ are uttered, dark, deep synth floats across chaotic, yet subdued beats. As it progresses different sounds conjoin to maximise the listening experience, including higher pitched squeals, additional synths and juxtaposed melodies. The tracks splits voices that seems like they’re singing from out from behind the walls of some place it can’t escape, conspiring to make this a compelling listen.
From Underworld to The Prodigy to Aphex Twin, the middle order tracking of ‘Half Light’, ‘Squeal’ and ‘5×5’immediately recall our missing heroes. Whether it is straight up homage, or a call for the return of those lost superstars of nearly two decades ago, it’s not certain. But it is a shame these tracks are not the strongest on the album.
‘Killer’ raises the game, and is a transitional track that consists of a spooked out voice, half singing over eerie synth lines that give way to a faded piano melody. And then the rave starts to happen with the best song on the album, ‘Precursor’. This song makes you feel like you’re moving through the dusk fallen city with the rolling nature of the beats. Again, what is layered on top of these beats is dark and made up of random sounds as much as it is actual melodies. The melodies and sounds will stick in your head long after the song has ended, as well as continue to prolong the atmosphere of the album.
‘Last Light’ could easily be a firm nod to the past greats of electronica, a salute to those last big money days. Or more hopefully its unhinged darkness could be a surge of revolt that clamours for those lost heads to come out of their wilderness and do something to restart the fire. Sights Distorted have created an album with no compromise, and no half-measures. Slithering between Dance-Pop and Post-Rock, Industrial and Ambient, ‘Last Light’ forges its own unique identity by being greater than the sum of its parts.
AP Childs
