From Nashville, Tennessee comes this interesting duo of Dave Campbell on guitars, bass, keyboards, & vocals, and Andrew Dickson on drums, called Life in the Sky. Illusions of Loudness is a bold statement from two musicians who are seemingly bursting with ideas, as they combine modern metal with prog, ambient/experimental, and gothic hard rock, for a spicy gumbo that is at times dark and moody, at others literally all over the place, yet always pretty original.
Once you get by the somewhat muddy production, there's some juicy stuff going on here. Booming, distorted bass lines permeate the crunchy "Dark Eyes", complete with effects-laden vocals, which segues into the space rock instrumental "Throwing Stars" , featuring oodles of bubbling keyboards. Layers of distorted guitar sludge attacks you in fine stoner tradition on "Red to Blue", one of the CD's doomier pieces that will please listeners of Black Sabbath, Goatsnake, or Saint Vitus with its snails pace guitar dirges. Fans of Marilyn Manson should dig the offbeat goth-metal of "Ants", a disturbingly delicious slice of bizarro that takes a little getting used to due to the creepy vocals, but the tune works in a strange sort of way. Technical and heavy prog-metal can be heard on 'High Seas", and the band gets into a wild Rush-like groove on the artsy "The Mix", a song that has loads of weaving guitar & bass lines, along with some impressive crashing drum work from Dickson.
Illusions of Loudness pushes all the right buttons, and shows a band that should have a bright future ahead of them. I would opt for a full-time singer if they choose to continue with vocal numbers, but their instrumental prowess is pretty substantial that if they decided to cut out the vocals they would not lose a step. Better production and a focused direction for their next effort should really bring this band to the next level. I'll be waiting.
Track List
1) Nothing's Wrong At All?
2) Ants
3) High Seas
4) Irish Celtic
5) Hanging By the Ends
6) Dark Eyes
7) Throwing Stars
8) The Mix
9) Red to Blue
10) Down and Multi-Threaded
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