Verdant - Sincerity

There are not many new names on the scene of power electronics recently. Musical experiments with extreme sound demand a special mental condition, and I assume that the people with such a kind of condition became rare these days. Though an American resident Zach Adams is not an accidental person in the field of aggressive creativity and was involved in few projects before, the new fruit of his imagination under the name "Verdant" has only one album in its portfolio. That's why today I will try to rummage through this pack of tracks bound with one straight and meaningful word 'Sincerity'.

To be honest, I've never heard anything of Zach's projects before, therefore why I cannot judge about their difference from Verdant. Though positioned as "power electronics", this album is far from being compressed into this genre being a combination of various styles. First two tracks of this record definitely fall into the definition of classic power electronics. Noisy and aggressive mechanical cacophony, scratches and pulsations, and on a top of this is a violent vocal session. A slight difference from the classics is a strong accent which is set on this vocal, like it is the music that is bound around playing a secondary role. Suddenly, the rate of album's intensity is broken by the third and the fourth compositions which loose the high aggressiveness for a more quiet and slow industrialization, though the tension is still there created by the full range of static disturbances, rolling energy charges, electronic droning effects and a mysterious background chanting.

With the "In the Parior" Zach strikes back with a wall of machinery erection blasting the previous quiet atmosphere, but really soon the rate is dropped once again to dive into the pure experimentation of the "God Knows" which is full of accidental scratches, painful violin jerking and other non-conventional weaponry. A very depressive mood is projected into the seventh composition "Yellow Jacket" with a concentration of a high level hum and different slow special effects. Most of the tracks are guided by sampled voices from movies or something that add a kind of cinematic touch to the whole structure (special props for the "If I rule the world" insert of the second track).The same ragged tempo continues on and on until the end of the album while energetic and sharp tracks are diluted with slower parts.

As for me, I didn't feel too inspired from 'Sincerity'. Though this album has few unusual parts, it stays quite plain and even frankly boring in some sections. Jumping from low-fi dark ambient pieces to power electronics, sudden changes in tempo, all of that doesn't contribute much for overall feeling. Also, I cannot feel the connection between tracks; I cannot feel something that binds the pack of compositions into the solid piece under one name which we usually call "an album". Even the better tracks fail to impress when played in a row because of this lack of chemistry between each other. Nevertheless, I have to be honest and mention a few bright moments and especially great, simply massive track with the name "Apple Blossom Time" that presents heavy artillery of total destruction and blasting energy being a true "savior of the day" for the whole album. Anyhow, I leave it up to you to judge from this point about the contribution of "Sincerity" to contemporary arts. May 20 2013