At The Heart Of It All - A Romance In Colditz

Well, I began off thinking that I was going to hate this two song release. I don't know why, but perhaps it's because I'm extremely tired at the time of writing this, but I also can't seem to slip into the dream world, either. So, rather than doing the healthy thing and waiting patiently until I fall asleep, I've decided to stare into my laptop screen and further ruin my eyes all for the glory of reviewing music.

Now, At The Heart Of It All is an experimental noise project centered in the UK. They formed in 2010, and consist of three members, who are: Aaron, Derek, and Hayley. I wanted to type out their names, because most times more than ever do people enjoy using stage names that make no fucking sense, so it's nice to find a trio who don't find the use of creating alternate personas to their identities. It kind of makes them so much more surreal in a sense, and makes them sound like they don't need to sacrifice their own personality just to deliver a message in their music.

I wanted to know what exactly Colditz was or is, and I found out it's a town in Germany most notable for its castle, which was used as a POW camp in both World War I and II. So, yes, naturally Colditz would be a lovely place to have a romantic evening. I'm pretty sure this was just meant to be a juxtaposition of words; at least that's what I was hoping it would be. If not, then I'd say we're dealing with some sick people.

A Romance In Colditz was the first song and borrows its title from the name of the release. It was a very slow song, with haunting melodies and an almost ghostly singing, and dragged out female voice that sounds fairly good. There's a constant, but slight noise going on at all times in the background that I found to be a little annoying, but the bass drops along with the guitar that flows with the song makes me want to follow along with it to the end.

The second song on the album is Ubik, which I'm guessing was titled after the 1969 science fiction novel of the same name, which is almost a horror story so long as you're aware of the themes and messages of it. Then again, if you are an idiot, you may not just get it and just come off of it with an interesting tale. I have to say that the song, however, did a fairly good job at creating a disturbing atmosphere that the book also tried to do.

And, with that, there's not much else to say considering this was a mere two track release. I would have liked to see more from the band, because it's enjoyable, but it's also hard to make a complete judgment on the trio just based off of two tracks. I could dig into their discography, but that would be cheating, as I need to look into this release and not the others to use my almighty power to pass final judgement onto them. I did enjoy it, I can say that much, but, in the end, I really wanted to see so much more. Aug 29 2013