<< – Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Siren Sings Swan Songs" />
This is album number two from REW<< aka Ryan E. Weber. Across the 10 tracks is a series of experimental sounds ranging from subtle ambience to trippy psychedelic vibes. This leads to mixed results with some songs bringing out some amazing sounds and vivid atmosphere and others feeling disjointed or not fully realised.
On the positive side, the single, ‘To come unglued’ is a major highlight, bringing in a curious Eastern / psychedelic vibe mixed with a chilled out indie vibe. The different sounds create a curious and unpredictable journey full of weird and wonderful things to be found along the way.
‘Olive Skinned, Silver Tongues’ is a smooth chilled out offering. The calm and soft sounds create an endearing and hypnotic vibe that draws you in and after a while takes you off to some magical and colourful land! The subtle, almost smothered vocals add to the tripped out feel of the song.
‘Cupid’s empty house’ is a curious trippy song wound together with smooth ambient vibes that build up a thick and hazy atmosphere that slowly but surely surrounds you.
On the not so positive side, ‘Big fish and the sirens’ sounds like an even weirder version of the Flaming Lips. There is a smattering of interesting and pleasant sounds in the song however it is a little too experimental with no clear direction, as a result it ends up sounding rather patchy and disjointed.
‘The distance from vultures’ is a ripped bare tune consisting in most parts of an acoustic guitar and very soft vocals. The end result is pleasant enough but doesn’t do a great deal to make it memorable!
‘Swan’s Melody’ and ‘Threadbare cashmere’ both posses some nice and relaxing sounds back lack anything to make them really stand out or be memorable. As a result they work as lovely background music but not much more.
Overall this is quite a decent release with a handful of outstanding hypnotic tunes. There are no terrible moments however there are occasions where the songs don’t feel quite developed enough to reach their full potential. Nevertheless the album has some pleasant and atmospheric sounds throughout.
Check out REW<<‘s webpage to find out more!
