Giovedì 14 Dic 2006, 15:41

Album Review

Album: “THE SUICIDE MACHINE”
Artist: サディ(Sadie)
Release Date: 11-22-06
Date Received: 12-13-06

Track 1 - "cofusion"

This is a cool pick-up to the album. There is no time wasted in jumping right into the classic Sadie sound of stern guitar and assertive vocals. It's not felt right away, but three quarters into the song you start to take in the feeling that there's a great amount of substance to this song. While the sound is a bit predictable, you can sense the weight of the lyrics and how they mesh with the instrumentals. In this particular song, the guys take classic drum and string rhythms and rifts and incorporate subtle intricacies that make the instrumental aspect of the song seem orchestral. Not my favorite song on the album because I put a subconscious emphasis on variety but a sufficient introductory song nonetheless to help get the blood flowing in time for the next track.

Track 2 - "Deathwish"

This one is a little moodier than the previous track, incorporating a lot of death growls and low, murmuring lyrics. The melody is picking up from the previous track in its orchestral feel though it seems to take on a more modern, electric sound– string raking and a greater emphasis on base. There's lots of overlapping in this track, mixing subdued back-up vocals with the vocalist's harsher voice. That's a very nice effect that I've noticed in a few of their songs in the past but they don't incorporate it so often as to make it seem overdone. This song is not the heaviest I've heard from Sadie but it does prove to be a prime example of the "hot and heavy" song that Sadie does from time to time– that is, sexy, demure, and almost panting periods followed immediately by periods of hard musical sounds and growling screamo vocals. In this case, it’s back and forth between these two styles throughout the song. You didn’t notice it right away in the transition from “cofusion” to “Deathwish,” but the transitions are made to seem like one trails into the other. It’s made more obvious in the quick transition of “Deathwish” into…

Track 3 – “Voice of pain”

This song jumps right into the heavy, metal-esque sound right away with first guitar and support guitars performing some speedy string acrobatics while the drums keep double time. This is right away recognized as a higher-energy song but it slows down a bit and allows Mao (vocals) to jump in with some subdued, murmuring vocals. Like in the last song, the energy picks up again rather quickly, though “Voice of pain” seems to me a little more melodic than “Deathwish.” There’s an echo effect sprinkled throughout the song that I thought was extremely sexy for some reason. There’s lots of contrast in this track between melodic singing and harsher choruses. Like “Deathwish,” it ends abruptly and brings the next track right into the void.

Track 4 – “MAD-ROID”

With most bands, it’s usually the vocalist that does the more metalish, raking vocalizations while the background vocalists (I THINK Tsurugi and Aki in this case—feel free to correct me) do the easier singing portions. This is reversed in this song, which was one of the first things that caught my ear. It was a nice mix-up from traditional form—not that it’s never been done, it’s just not something I hear often since Mao would probably be more trained to handle those kinds of vocalizations. Another thing that caught my ear was the ending. I can’t place my finger on the reason why that ending sounds so good to me. I think it’s just that there’s just so much going on in the foreground and background but it’s arranged to make it seem organized and controlled. Very nice in my opinion.

Track 5 – “Empty Room”

“Empty Room” starts out with some interesting sound effects, like something you’d hear out of a laptop sound system while trying to tweak the quality. For those of you who have a laptop with no additional speakers, you know exactly what that sounds like. The song suddenly gets clearer like you just jacked said laptop into a thousand dollar stereo system. I think this became my most favorite track on the album on my first listen. Though there’s no bass, the low, resonate guitar pulsing in the background in intermittent periods throughout the song give it that thick sound that make the other instrumentals seem to jump out at you. Though this song is a little more sedated than its predecessors on this album, it’s extremely emotive. I respect Mao’s voice a great deal on this particular track because of the range of his voice and the effects he utilizes (specifically the “jump” he achieves about 2:15 into the track). It’s subtle, so I don’t know why I picked that out specifically, but I found it charming.

Though none of these songs are debunking my current favorite from their “GRUDGE OF SORROW” single (tsuiren no hana~ oh lawd, take me away…) but it’s a very good album which I’m sure, after a little more time with it, will grow on me more than it already has. I give it a 8/10.

If you got the album, you would have also gotten a DVD disc with their new PV “meisai” which is sexy as all get out, I’ll tell you. I’m sure sometime down the road it’ll be ripped to YouTube (if not already) but check it out when it does. It’s already one of my favorites.