Synth Single Review: “Paladin” by DEADLIFE

by Karl Magi

DEADLIFE’s “Paladin” slams forward with a wall of raging sound, howling and tearing like a hellish storm as it is slashed by a blade-like melody, crying out with blinding energy before the gigantic underlayer heaves. A melody rises, a heady mixture of pain, strength and determination while the rhythm smashes like a weapon through armour.

A piano hovers with spectrally tracing tendrils, as unremittingly heavy percussion shatters and a ghostly, wordless vocal line wriggles. Feelings of triumphant, sacred energy permeate the crushing melody before far away voices drift like undead creatures into an echoing void while the piano trembles with hurt and fear.

Like a deadly creature, full of ravening hunger, the track surges again, while the melody lacerates with deadly strength. Minor key vocals drift like otherworldly beings, joined by melodic tones that climb with a fearful warning. Eldritch terror fills me before the track ends on floating tones that drift into quiet.

Synth Single Review: Phil Collins’ “Another Day In Paradise” covered by Tommy Countach

by Karl Magi

Tommy Countach’s cover of Phil Collins’ “Another Day In Paradise” combines urgency in the rushing sonic pulse along with a haunting feeling that floats above it before the percussive punch jams forward as his vocals reach out with earnest power, carrying the affecting lyrics.

A torrent of bass and rhythm drives the expressive depth of Tommy Countach’s performance before the rhythm drops away and vocals hover before launching again. A synth melody blooms with a delicate halo and the throbbing weight below shifts as the chorus glides with velvet smoothness.

Flying upward again, the extremely catchy melody raises me up with it, while the contrasting shadow of the lyrics creates an effective balance. A cascade of blossoming notes glistens while the huge foundation slices with sharp sound and silence falls.

Phil Collins’ lyrics tell the story of indifference and disregard for the plight of others which plagues modern society. The song explores the way in which people turn away from those in need because it makes them feel uncomfortable or unsure, rather than responding with compassion. The chorus has an ironic twist while reminding us to think twice because, "it's another day for you and me in paradise."

W O L F C L U B - City of Once

Review by Karl Magi

Overall Album Impressions

Wolfclub’s “City Of Once” voyages through all of the challenging, contradictory and deeply human feelings with which we each must contend. The way in which the album brings together acoustic sounds with synthesized layers forms an engaging and emotionally powerful background to support a variety of very talented guests, each of whom adds more strength and weight to the music. As a result, the album delves deeply into all of those things that make us feel and fills our lives with complexity.

As an approach, the balance of synthesized elements with acoustic and more organic sounds “City Of Once” is something I find enjoyable. Steven Wilcoxson has a sense of balance in his choices of instruments and the production qualities of his music. The musicians playing their instruments and the synthesized tones and textures come together in a way that paints cinematic imagery, adding more expression to the vocal elements.

Without the guest artists, “City Of Once” would still be well done, but the guests elevate the music to another level. Each has a voice which is distinctive and full of true feeling, adding layers of vulnerability and passion to their expression. The individual character of the performers comes through while still allowing Steven Wilcoxson to showcase his vision and lyric writing. I enjoy the fact that there's both cohesion and a unique quality to the songs performed by the guests.

Lyrically speaking, Steven Wilcoxson evokes feelings that roil and intertwine within each of us. He's unafraid of digging into the more emotionally difficult corners and expressing them with honesty and beauty. The way in which he brings together combinations of love and pain or loss and hope contributes to the impression that one is being shown a true version of how he might feel or the experiences he's had that led to this music.

My Favourite Tracks Analyzed

“City of Once” begins with a languid melodic pattern that glimmers like skyscrapers on the horizon and a synth creates muffled delicacy before the exhaling vocals caress like soft hands on warm skin. The lead singer finds the essence of the lyrics, in touch with their affection and emptiness, bringing together brokenness and desire.

In the distance, a drift of notes floats before massive percussion presses on. Sunburnt passion fills the vocals as they reach me with their earnest yearning. Phil Smith’s guitar has a slightly gruff tone and carries melodic entanglements that tremble with ferocious feeling.

The lead singer’s voice has a vulnerable quality that permeates the music with tragic love above a heavy reverberation. The chorus climbs with a nostalgic haze that extends above the foundational pulse before the song comes to a close on Phil Smith’s guitar as it reflects bereft passion in its interwoven sound.

As she drowns herself in the song's subject's past, our storyteller is "trapped in a figure of eight" as she trips over the words she wants to say "forever, that there's no escape." She feels clumsy with the other person and her soul as she fails to “call myself brave." Ink from the photograph’s frame covers her hands and "the monochrome spills from the page."

Feeling "grazed by the summer," the narrator doesn't think she can recover and she's being kicked out anyways. She says there's "no time to remember, just time to surrender." She'll "meet you in the city of once," and embrace the song's subject there for eternity but that won't be enough. she adds "I'll starve or suffocate in your love” if that's what she’s feeling.

"Stand by the glass just to watch you sway, I'm vacant in all the right ways "as our storyteller tears at her heart so that the song's subject could stay, "an ultrasound mapping your veins."

Rough-edged electric guitar strums in a static-filled line that shifts uncomfortably as “Stop” captures fiercely moving emotion and Angie Robba broadcasts all of the burning feelings that rise within her before the percussion shudders with guiding energy.

The intensity and aching feeling within Angie Robba's unique and earnest voice transfers to me through the pained, needy melody. The chorus bursts with all of the drama of a growing sunrise before the heavy underlayer is joined by Phil Smith’s guitar that calls out, encapsulating all of the mixed passion and vulnerability within the lyrics and the vocals.

All of the fierce love and loss that pours from Angie Robba drives home the song's message. As the rhythm slowly slides away, tangling notes growl from the guitar with conviction and strong emotion before the chorus spills once more and the song ends.

With the outline of the city in the background, a shadow stands with our narrator and she says she'll "see it in a matter of time and I'll hold it tight but know that the shapes will blur in contact," because it's her imprisoned in a moment of her own. While she watches the past take shape slowly, she says, "My eyes don't even know me, reckless and so carelessly numb."

The song's subject's form reveals itself softly, "transparent and so ghostly," which she can remove as though brushing it away with her thumb.

"I'm falling for you, I'm falling apart," as she announces that she'll fall for the other person one more time and then stop. She'll keep the song's subject in her pocket like a "gold chain and silver locket." Like a photo stolen from a frame, she cuts the other person's shape out to fit them in. She says that it was "chopped up from the beginning to hold the paper, you and the weight."

Like the dawn breaking, umber tones spread outward along with gentle vocal harmonies hovering in the background as “Lost” comes into focus before the lead singer’s vocals sail in with honeyed tenderness. As breathy notes spread into a flowing pattern, the vocals are permeated with a powerful yearning for completion and the background notes exude orange luminosity.

As Phil Smith’s guitar solo captures mournful passion, it touches me and wraps around me, blanketing me with warm sensations. The lead singer has a voice like silk and uses it to deliver a melody combining love and questioning as the guitar cascades, shivering with emotion and the rhythm guides before the song closes on sobbing guitar.

Talking about "the emptiness of what was won," our storyteller says that the song's subject "left the fields when there's no distance left to run." The other person always thought they'd be important but they simply "held the silence when all that’s said was said and done."

As the "stands fall in the lighting, carved up grass and brothers fighting," the scoreboard's light is dazzling and "the grip of youth so tense and frightening." The summer pretends that "the battle can't stop the sun from setting" and both the narrator and the song's subject’s past is "out there reflecting" along with their never-ending love.

Closing out the song, our storyteller asks: “How do we lose ourselves to get lost? How do we find ourselves when we've lost?"

“Almost Nothing” comes together in a web of glowing guitar and continually tumbling bass that creates pressure to propel the music as the lead singer’s ethereal vocals haunt with challenged emotion, strings adding an energetic leap as they create warmth beneath the emotionally gliding vocals above the exploding beats.

The lead singer catches hopeful emotion mixed with emptiness and struggle while the drum beat speeds along beneath. As Phil Smith’s guitar meshes with the percussion, it creates growth and energy to contrast with the more complicated emotion in the lyrics. The lead singer's full range of expression captures my heart before the chorus blazes with concentrated radiance, carrying the song's dreaming feelings on to a conclusion.

Referring to the darker part of herself, our narrator says that "there's so many words that I want to leave, tenderly or bittersweet." She can imagine a plethora of futures but there's a "a missing piece, carelessly" and they're tossing their hearts away recklessly to "settling or rushing in, retracing our steps to begin again."

The storyteller is a "runaway crying out in the dark" and running straight for the other person's heart. "Blackheart me, meandering through the open sores of a rootless tree" and recalling that "senselessly, we carved our names just to make it bleed."

A guitar melody drifts with wistful contemplation and a sensation of interwoven light as “There Goes the Dream” flows to transmit a pensive feeling before Indigo's voice hovers with lacy elegance above the repeating guitar pattern as it illustrates the song’s emotional weight. A prismatic synth gleams as Indigo drives the lyrics home with an earnestness and ferocity of feeling that belies her performance’s breathy grace.

Rhythmic beats shatter and the strength within the music radiates outward, grasping me with its conviction. A full-sounding synth moves with Phil Smith’s guitar as it cries, lifting in a burst of distant love and hope that perhaps things can be good again. Firefly brightness spills from the vocals and the synth, combining in one sonic sunrise before the foundation adds guidance.

Seeing a "sunset in your eye," the narrator wonders if she was the other person’s or if they were only hers. Facing a "distance I can't climb," she realizes that, "the time was gone but all's not lost and I wanted you to lie." She’s sick and tired as the days and weeks don't do anything but, "rush to pass us by like thieves caught in the night. "

Smoke rises to "choke the buildings of the sky" and our storyteller wanted to save the other person and have them stay as she took away their pain. “The breeze will make things right, to wash away the dust that's percolating in our minds” as a "beam of vapour fights and dulls to shade the mist of us that's catching in the light.”

“Chasing Ruins” strums to life with Phil Smith’s guitar creating a folksy feeling and thoughtful quiet balanced with gentleness before the thundering rhythm joins Cadenti's voice which rises in a luscious line, full of emotional engagement. Strings wash as the synth glitters like stars rising and Cadenti imbues the lyrics with life and earnest feeling while the beats break into a heavy pulse.

Iridescence reflects from the music while the soaring vocals reach out to enmesh my heart. Strumming floats with strings that create moments of sunny luminosity while the mournful expression in the vocals drifts with unconcealed affection and need.

The bed of strings has a muted tenderness that mixes the lyrics while the guitar growls with a gruffer feeling, Cadenti pours everything into his performance, adding to the brilliant brightness that spills fully and the song ends in a richly entangled soundscape.

Wondering if "it will ever be right to say you're on my mind" or if it'll ever be "fine to go with you sometime” the narrator says perhaps they aren't the same but "I can't seem to let it slide, so I'm waiting tonight."

"I'll wait for you in the middle of the night, I'll wait for you and won't turn out the light" because our storyteller knows that he belongs to the song's subject but "you are not mine." Now he is chasing after everything they left behind and he's "chasing love, chasing tears, chasing all your fears, chasing ruins, chasing you."

As the acoustic guitar introduction creates contemplation as “Desolate” breathes into being with a breeze slipping through leaves as the singer's fragility makes an imprint, capturing all of the potential hurt and loss reflected in the words. Breezy sound sails out while the guitar floats along with hissing static, adding an element of uncertainty before

The singer exhales in a breath of remembrance and the chorus calls out with pain that leaves me vulnerable. Static hisses as the sonic elements come together in a misty wash and the broken beat creates powerful propulsion. The vocalist reaches for the listener with her heart on her sleeve, her voice revealing the emotional depths within the words before the song closes out.

"I don't understand the lightning in my head, the scars upon my hands" so the storyteller stands. She speaks of a hope that came to be and a love that wasn't theirs "like melted photographs." Finally she has the strength to ask as her mask slips but "time won't bring you back like trash flowing through our house." She wants to fix it but he can't because her fingertips are in ash and she’s desolate.

"I'm running odds and ends" the narrator says as she lays in the ruins of the song's subject.she adds "it's better to pretend” and says the other person has "a will that will not bend, a bone that cannot mend, your heart is so desolate. "

“Avalanche” has a fuzzed out guitar halo that gives rough edges to the music, joined by Cadenti’s vocals that float with his distinctive, magisterial tones and carry emotion with unadulterated heart and soul. The track arcs with elegiac feeling and a sinewy rhythm adds another layer of support as the vocals rise with cloudy grace.

Cadenti’s combination of great power and deep feeling keeps me held in thrall. Colossal percussion rebounds and the sung melody climbs with nobility and undeniable strength, piercing the listener with the wonderfully heartfelt vocals. As the music ends, astral sheen reflects from each sonic surface.

Describing the song’s subject as "an avalanche, a soaring star, a satellite," our narrator adds that he doesn't know where they are. Comparing the other person to "the rain at sundown, a slow burn sky, a heartache rundown" he says that they still don't know how to fly.

"An avalanche fell and we got it so wrong," but the storyteller doesn't want to decide if he wants to be strong, he'd rather "learn to be somebody else." He doesn't want to lie but, "the storm won't stop and we’re covered with rain." To conclude, he says " I don't want to deny, I want to do it again. "

Guitar with a slight twang produces a home spun feeling before Cadenti’s vocals spread out like honey and remembrance to bring “You Sleep, I'll Drive” into being with oneiric contemplation while strings intermingle with haunting words. Fully engaging the listeners in his performance, Cadenti cries out with the ache of unfulfillable love.

As Phil Smith’s guitar weaves the story of a long night, I am charmed by Cadenti’s distinctive and honest performance. A slow heartbeat of drums anchors the wistfully compelling vocals. A static pulse, like a radio caught between stations, moves as the vocals soar into the air with inescapably touching sensations before the song stops.

Our narrator says, "you sleep, I'll drive through the mountains, through the forests, through your eyes." They'll walk together through the darkness and he’ll hold the song's subject "to a love song in the sky.”

Wishing that the other person could still hear him and was a part of his life, he says "now I've only got memories to keep you alive." He wants to be able to hold the other person once more and tell them that it's all right. He concludes , "I know that it's hard but please stay one more day. "

Conclusion

“City Of Once” is for listening to late at night with all the world asleep, wrapped in thought. It examines life with honest and vulnerable feelings as it evolves, keeping my ears engaged.

New Arcades - A Night To Reflect

Review by Karl Magi

Overall Album Impressions

New Arcades’ “A Night To Reflect” travels through tropical beauty, down twisting ribbons of tarmac and across a city sparkling with neon light on a synthesized journey through melodic elegance and luxurious sound. The way in which New Arcades combine their sonic palette with well-crafted melodies and an image-rich atmosphere results in an album that carries me away from the complicated mess in which the world currently finds itself.

A vibrant, lushly layered mixture of synth sounds is laid down by New Arcades to permeate “A Night To Reflect” with sensations that are all glistening and full of jeweled light. The synth textures and timbres complement one another to frame cinematic imagery that evokes a retrofuture city by a tropical sea, a place that is dreamed into being, rather than any real location. Sound becomes a route into experiencing this realm as it reveals itself.

Melody sits at the heart of “A Night To Reflect,” transmitting tranquility, relaxation and an escape from the mundane and routine. The world painted by this music is full of uplifting sensations, energy that has distinctly laid back and sets one at ease and visions of a place that lingers just out of reach. Despite the music’s soothing nature, it hints at a yearning for a place to which we can truly escape.

Each track of “A Night To Reflect” is a small vignette from a magical place, a place of dreams and peace that exists only in imagination. This realm is one which we can never really reach but the hope for it is what gives it life. As I listen, the music draws me into that place and holds me there, cradled in its embrace.

My Favourite Tracks Analyzed

“Sunset Odyssey” captures a moment of settled peace at twilight as a slowly striding drum beat moves with notes that evoke soft light rising over a city skyline. The lead synth has a hushed quality, painting sunset colours of gold and orange while the rhythm provides silky guidance. Drums rebound as a melody captures twilight lounging and notes glow like a thousand city lights winking on.

The underpinnings add shape while distant tones illuminate the sun’s orb sinking into darkness. I breathe out as I imagine lying on a beach and watching the sun drop into the ocean, pink light suffusing the water. The soft sigh of waves mingles with lush sounds, layers of lapping richness slipping by. The beat rocks like a boat at anchor while elevated notes add a phosphorescent sheen, like bioluminescence as daylight fades and night descends.

As tumbling notes rush rapidly and the foundational pulse speeds like pavement under tires “After Hours” accelerates forward with dramatic tension and the swirling synth slips with a melody capturing all of the excitement of a midnight drive. Bass undulates and drums slap as synth chords erupt with phosphorescence and hollow drums drive onward.

Street lights become a blur and yellow lines disappear while a potent engine propels a sleek sports car forward. A note pattern evokes images of unfurling blacktop and a driver pressing on into the growing darkness, disappearing from the city. Arpeggios shift with thrilling energy and the muscled chords produce flashing radiance, painting pictures of the city skyline fading in the distance and freedom opening out in front of the song’s main character before the music ends.

“Keeping Memories” has a levitating delicacy underpinned by luminescent chords that expand as the softly tapping percussion forms a heartbeat, accompanied by bass that ripples outward in muffled strength. Melodic notes twine together, creating tranquility as the slightly distorted vocals repeat, “keeping memories, only you can feel.”

A note pattern weaves a mixture of meditation and reminiscence, sliding with a velvety grace that is shaped by the underpinnings. Chimes hover along with the tenderly expressed vocals, permeating me with serene sadness. Rain pattering in the background generates another layer of calm before closing the track.

Refined drops of crystal fall through the atmosphere before a smooth rhythm becomes a steady heartbeat and “When The City Sleeps” exhales with a melody reflecting a midnight mood, full of sensations of watching a sparkling skyline spread out, looking out across a vast city.

A synth with a ghostly quality levitates as a robotic voice generates more urban meditation, sounding like the future as tones like raindrops trickle and glimmer. A deeper note pattern pulls me into thoughtful tranquility while the solid underlayer presses on and higher notes exude the peace of a quiet city street.

The faint glow of the night sky, rich with dusk tones, spreads with a settled kind of dreaming while the rain falls in the distance. As fragile as the water droplets, filigreed notes intermingle and the robotic voice chants with longing, despite the synthetic quality and the track closes out.

“Endless Horizon” adds some tension as a vocal synth echoes once before tumbling notes become an arpeggio and sweeping cymbals wash while airy panpipes levitate, calling to mind expansive landscapes, before active percussion propels.

Notes ring like gossamer bells, while the underlayer produces unbroken vistas, carrying me with a dynamic heartbeat. Warmer notes mingle with the panpipes to create an impression of sparkling stars above an unending landscape.

The percussion keeps everything moving as the synth chords invoke massive space and twirling tones add more motion. Images of journeying across the landscape full of ancient magic permeate the track while the choir briefly calls and rain shimmers before deep tones add roundness and the track falls into silence.

With notes that slip in a line of graceful sound, a feeling of easiness spills out as “Valley” becomes more active as percussion moves beneath the melody that unfurls in a with increasing melancholy as the vocals continue to dream and the low end rebounds, adding to the smoothness that suffuses the music.

Images of a beautiful valley spreading out with green hills rolling to a flowing river fill the music as the vocals add impressions of complete fondness while the rhythm guides. Quick twinkles of synth light spread out and the melody takes on an energizing quality as percussion throbs and the vocals fill me with intense warmth and a hint of sadness.

“Daybreak” is driven by huge underlying power and some shadow as the melody generates feelings of growing tension, adding a dramatic quality. As enigmatic synth intertwines, bursting percussion propels and glimmering notes transform the music with caressing sensations and the vocals fill the music with wistful dreaming.

Chimes give off an ethereal glow and ringing tones sparkle around the vocal inflections that deepen the yearning for positivity and a new day's dawn. A synth tumbles out into the music and silence falls.

Images of a relaxed summer night bring “Feel the Heat” to life as a resonant jazz organ transmits the unfolding melody while full bass swells up and drums patter. Lustrous notes flash as the kick drum thuds while the jazz organ dances with introspective warmth, drawing me into a mood of summer nostalgia.

In the distance, circular tones expand and the drums punch forcefully. Coruscating sounds gleam like sunbeams as the jazz organ adds depth and a luxurious feeling. As the melody roams out, it transmits contemplative emotion, while a fluting synth cries out with gentle breathiness. Huge bass rumbles before the track fades out on the jazz organ.

Conclusion

“A Night To Reflect” is like a distant dream that hovers on the edge of wakefulness, carrying me across these soundscapes of peace and complex feeling. As I am transported, I find myself captivated by the emotional depth of this album.