by: Zero Sharp
A year or more ago, I bought a down-tempo single that was incredible. By the name "Clubbed to Death", it was a beautiful piece of film-noir influenced trip-hop, and it mentioned being from an upcoming album. Now by the time I'd almost forgotten about the single, the full length album that track was taken from, "Furious Angels" came out. There's no smoke without fire; "Clubbed to Death" really gives an idea what style the whole album is. That's really a double-edged sword in this case, however, as it's questionable exactly how much over the top emotional grandstanding one would want in one's music. Most of the tracks here make "Clubbed to Death" pale in terms of grandioso, and the cliched tricks he uses repeatedly doesn't help make the tracks to not sound the same. This sounds like a film score if the film were just a two hour dramatic climax. Every one of these tracks want to be the peak of the album, and that makes it a really hard listen; it's tiring after about 15 minutes. There are some good songs here, like "There's Only Me" and "Nothing At All", but there's very little contrast in style, even. His vocals remind me of Pink Floyd's sometimes spoken style, but while the latter could be subtle, Rob Dougan hasn't learned that lesson yet. The second CD, which features many of the songs in instrumental version is a bit more palatable, but I don't think that it would justify everything else in this package. My suggestion to those curious or who want their down-tempo fix: go buy the "Clubbed to Death" single instead. To those who want to emulate the album: put the single on repeat, and do dramatic dances to approximate what this unattractive, homogeneous wall of sound invokes.
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