Oxyd - Astral Border

With the enormous breeding of modern electronic project these days, I can't stay aside without tasting almost every day some new CD in that field of creativity exploration. Today this is Oxyd to welcome me into their last album called 'Astral Border'. As the result of the evolving process during
last few years, this Slovakian band crafted four albums which are different conceptually one from another. Being a project of two Disharmony guys which they run through well-known Tympanik Audio, this one explores more atmospheric side of electronic music. Though, in my opinion, Oxyd fits more than Disharmony into the concept of Tympaniik artists line.

Anyhow, the music of the duo is the mix of both electronic and acoustic analogue passages. While the previous albums are dark and concrete, this time they pursuit the attempt of being wide and spread to create the structures which would be able to connect between astral journeys and outer space territories. The music flow is very synthetic, electronic beats rule the rhythm that sometimes becomes even almost danceable, like the track "Journey". There are a lot of significant gothic chorus chants which are widely spread over the electric field to add the depth into the atmosphere. The track "Lucifer's Dreams" is a good example for such a method. But what a surprise, these efforts fail to create the effect they seek for, and are unable to touch me except few moments here and there. There is a constant strong feeling of some kind déjà vu, like I heard once something like that, and not one time, but much more. Nothing that I can call unique, the structures that ought to be deep remain being flat and dull. Few strings melodies come to support the flow here and there and they definitely add some spice. But all the rest keep being monotonous, without any significant memory behind. Don't understand me incorrectly. There is some kind of a drive, my legs beat the floor in tact of the music, but with all the multitude of the bands that offer their thought and feelings around, the Oxydating melodies stay in background without moving into conscience. Though somewhere in the middle the improvement came to rescue almost lost battle, and I couldn't recognize the moment it happened. The land shafts kept their waiving, but something stronger entered the scene. Maybe it is some kind of outer inspiration or the change in rhythms or pulses, and the improvement developed up to the last two tracks "Astral Border Remix" and "Dystopia" which in my opinion are the strongest moments of the whole album.

Let's conclude all the bullshit that I spilled here before. I really like those guys' album called "Deep Core". Though it was less complex and straighter forward, it had some kind of a passion which brought me few delights. Instead of that, what I receive here is one more creation in the field of IDM music more fit into the niche of all those relaxation background cds for one-two times listening experience. Hope the next albums of this duo will be better, because I feel and think that there is much more to discover and much more potential inside those two talented comrades. Dec 30 2011