…And with Octahedron, a New Tour Must Begin
So, I’ve been slacking quite a bit, but hey…I had school, an internship, and a new job, so it’s been tough to add blog entries into the mix. Having little access to the interweb doesn’t help much either. Anyways, the summer is here, and thus a new era for The Hatching Gizzard is born.
As many of you probably know, Octahedron is scheduled for its official release a week from tomorrow. Octahedron is the band’s 5th LP, and one that explores the world of pop music. No, the band is not selling out! Pop doesn’t even mean bad, by any means. I don’t know why so many people automatically associate the term “pop” with “bad.” Just another bad generalization out there.
Octahedron is yet another new direction for the band. Confronting the difficult task of simplifying things a bit, multi-instrumentalist Adrián Terrazas-González and guitarist/sound manipulator Paul Hinojos were asked to step aside for the album, and possibly the entire Octahedron tour (according to shows so far). On top of this, Omar has limited the amount of tracks, sound tweaking, editing, and overall complexity, giving a more “acoustic” feel.
There is quite a bit of ambience used throughout the album. From the start, a simple note and its upper neighboring octave are drawn out for about a minute and a half. Although it may seem a bit unnecessary, it appears to be the back bone of the entire album, reoccuring several times. The most successful use of ambience throughout the album comes in during the build up section of Cotopaxi, bringing back a feeling similar to that in the song Frances the Mute.
Thomas Pridgen has made a pretty big change since The Bedlam in Goliath. Keeping things a bit more on the simpler side, Thomas restrains himself from throwing mad fills left and right and utilizes them a bit more accordingly to the new sound. Like the last album, he is one of the biggest standouts, throwing out very sick grooves in songs like “Desperate Graves” and “Teflon”.
The biggest surprise of them all is Cedric. Maturing as a singer, Cedric really knows how to utilize different tones from his vocal cords. Throughout the entire album, we hear a truly beautiful tone coming out from Cedric, most notably in “With Twilight As My Guide.” What’s more impressive about this tone is that it’s two-sided. As beautiful as it is, there is still something quite haunting about it. Combine the two and you get a body full of goosebumps. Another big surprise from Cedric was his use of harmonizing in “Copernicus.” It’s something new from Cedric, and although not perfect, still sounds very nice.
Overall, the album is quite pleasing. Nothing that’d I’d consider one of the best albums ever, but great for what it is. The only areas which could have been much better involved the mixing of tracks (ex. piano solo at the end of “Halo of Nembutals”. Although it’s supposed to be subtle, it’s almost too quiet to the point where your brain might not even recognize its presence right away). Fix that issue and you have yourself a fairly perfect album. The album’s lack of experimentation was an experiment that Omar accomplished quite well, and I look forward to seeing what move he’ll make next.
Key Songs: “Teflon,” “Halo of Nembutals,” “With Twilight As My Guide,” “Desperate Graves”
The band just started their tour last Tuesday with a show at the Ventura Majestic Theater in California (review to be posted soon) and a performance on Saturday at Bonnaroo. From here they are scheduled to go to Europe until Outside Lands Festival (San Francisco, CA) in August. Hopefully more dates will be announced soon.
