Pin Up Went Down

342

Written by: PP on 23/11/2010 04:00:12

My initial point of intrigue with Pin Up Went Down is the ID3 tagging of their digitial promotional kit that we were sent some time ago. You see in the genre field which usually houses things like "thrash metal", "hardcore" and so forth, this exceptionally strange outfit has simply opted to write "insanity" instead. But beware, this is not insanity in The Dillinger Escape Plan-style "Fix Your Face" chaotic destruction, nor Heavy Heavy Low Low-esque nonsensical metalcore or anything in that direction at all. In fact, even after a rather great number of active listening sessions, the tagging is still my main point of intrigue regarding this band because it's a fairly descriptive way of saying what's happening on their new album "342.

Basically, we're dealing with supremely experimental avant-garde metal that refuses to allow its listener to make any sense of it. The band is lead by a gothic/classically-trained female singer, the voice of whose can be said to be one of the strangest I've come across as my years as a music reviewer. She'll sing pitch-perfect in high octaves, only to move into monk-like chanting later, before transforming into... well, insanity much in the same way as Stolen Babies. She's contrasted by a gruff male screamer whose growls and shrieks don't seem to fit the musical style at all, but then again, nothing really fits here because things are so fucking avant garde. Maybe a little too much for its own good, actually. So stylistically it's impossible to place this band anywhere because I've quite frankly never heard anything like it. For some, that'll be a good thing, but the gazillion different styles ranging from generic metal to hardcore to jazz to space-rock to even deathcore-ish moments sounds like it could use some focus and coherence, at least in the long run. I mean listen to a song like "Khahob Of Aba" and notice how the band swing freely between Foxy Shazam-style "falling down the saloon stairs while playing piano" western rock and Stolen Babies-inspired ultra experimentation, and pretty much everything in between. It's a pretty decent song, but it's definitely very, very, very, VERY odd.

Other acts known to experiment in similarly crazy and unexpected ways include Diablo Swing Orchestra and Akphaezya. These may or may not have been influenced on this record too, frankly I can't tell because all of the songs sound so different. There's a small red thread in the form of those weird-sounding female vocals I described earlier holding the album together, but I can't for the love of god think when I would ever put this stuff on except when to impress my friends over what is possible when you put a few...erm, eccentric people in a room full of various instruments.

5

Download: Khahob Of Aba
For the fans of: Stolen Babies, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Akphaezya
Listen: Myspace

Release date 28.06.2010
Ascendance Records

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.