This is a modern Art Rock album by Southend band TNP. It blends Art Rock with Classical, not in the same way The Velvet Underground did in the 60's, but in the minimal, orchestral based way.
Musically, the album sounds very atmospheric, with the Neo Classical side of things showing strong, the blend of Art Rock and Classical really does create a great texture of sound. An instant noticeable weak point is the vocals, on the majority of tracks they seem emotionless. To me, theirs nothing worse than a flat weak vocalist with little passion, it's a total put off.
'Hologram' is an exception, the vocal work is better than average but still, it never takes off, where the instrumentation enters a different level, the vocals dip in to Spoken Word. 'Attack Music' sounds brilliant, the beat with some bass works well as the song progresses further. Classical instruments coming in at different points.
This reminds me of The XX but with a Classical feel, the low level of instrumentation creates a soothing sound scape which could be passed off as Soundtrack Music, such as on the gracious track 'Canticle'. The music doesn't vary as much as i had hoped it would, leaving me with mixed opinions. One side of this is the great instrumentation, the other is the weak vocals and repetitiveness of the beats.
To conclude, this album gives off a great sound, once the songs kick in, the vocals pick up and the beats differ slightly. Some major negatives such as the repetitive shallow vocals, are my opinion, these vocals are no for me, but I liked it, not worth the hype, but it has it's place in 2010.
~Eddie
~Eddie
7.5