Teleoptyk - City of Dis

Released earlier this year in January was Teleoptyk's City of Dis. The artist behind this project has a main project by the name of Maduro, a dark electronic project. And, now the man has created this side project which focuses more on power noise. However, in this release comes along vocals that really belong more or less in the electro-industrial area of music. Nonetheless, genre shifting and crossing is always welcomed so long as it's done neatly and tightly.

Now, the album is named after part of the Divine Comedy's folklore; Dis is pretty much where the sixth to ninth circles of Hell are located. This is the deepest part of Hell, in other words, where all the really bad guys are punished. So, if you're a believer, you could expect to find such prominent historical figures such as Jack the Ripper, the BTK strangler, and Luis Garavito. Biblical lessons aside, we continue onto the music.

I am not impressed. I find myself being rather bored by the music that I am currently listening, which would be the song Dissipated. The vocals are rather boring, sounding not too flavored at all, and the beat sounds pretty bare bones to me, like something that could easily be thrown together within five minutes without much thought. That might be a harsh criticism, and there probably will be those who throw out the whole, "You don't know what he had to go through to make this music!" But, not to spare, I am a mere journalist expressing his opinion on the internet. To sit here and argue over it would be like shooting a frozen Turkey at your local Wal-Mart for Thanksgiving. It's pointless and makes you look like an idiot.

However, continuing on, I really am having a hard time finding a song which really sticks out to me. Everything just sounds so, not to use a quote that's been used time and time again, but it sounds so "been there, done that" to me. Fear not, though, I am an honest writer, and there is one song that I actually enjoyed. The rest I could just do without on this release.

And that song that I so happened to enjoy would be Bones. What I found to be so catchy, so mystifying in this song would probably be the synth that works through the whole song. Without it, the song just loses flavor, and I sit through some otherwise boring beats. But, for one reason or the other, once the synth kicks in, I really wanted to sway back and forth with the song. Even the vocals manage to fit well in this song whereas I thought they didn't in the rest of the tracks presented on this release. So, I really do have to say that this song has become a good favorite of mine.

But, nonetheless, one song out of eleven is not enough to save this album. I mean, it seemed to have a pretty good modern analysis of the current world to the City of Dis as expressed in the Divine Comedy, but the bitter beats and uninspired works of most of this album deserves to remain in the ninth circle of Hell, where no one will hopefully travel just to listen to it. Aug 27 2013