It’s ironic that people – usually the over 35s – complain about the lack of new music, not least of all because they seem to want new music that’s the same as the old music they’ve spent the last 20 years listening to. It’s ironic not because there’s an infinite array of new music out there for anyone willing to explore beyond R1 and the usual radio channels, but because so much new music resembles the old music so many people hanker for.
Cydemind’s new offering, ‘Erosion’ doesn’t explicitly sound like a facsimile of music which predates it, but does quite clearly meet the criteria of meeting a comforting retro feel.
‘Influenced by bands such as Symphony X, Dream Theater, Haken, Plini, Rush along with classical, jazz and progressive rock, Montreal’s instrumental violin prog metal CYDEMIND offer a refreshing take on progressive music that is sure to attract interest from a wide audience with their new album “Erosion”… The release consists of six compositions including a 27 minute masterpiece of the album’s title track.’ So says the blurb. How it translates is pretty much as one might expect. The crunchy guitars are present and correct, but they’re given no more than equal billing to rolling pianos and sweeping violins. The compositions are expansive and cinematic – or colossally overblown, depending on your perspective – and matched by the arrangements.
Again, depending on your politic, it’s an exemplary demonstration of virtuosic technical instrumentation and ambitious vision, or it’s pompous, self-important muso onanism of the highest order.
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There’s no comparison musically, but I can’t help but place said title track against the monumental sonic expanses which occupy the two-hour running time of the last Swans album, ‘The Glowing Man’ and the live performances which witnessed the band push the parameters and shapes of the songs in every direction possible. I’m not going to slate Cydemind for not being Swans.
But how much noodling guitar harmonics does anyone need? How much brimming tension forged with theatrical piano and wildly sweeping string, bursting with emotion and drama can anyone take over the course of a single listening session? On Erosion, Cydemind go all out for the epic, and they do, indubitably deliver. But one can’t help but wonder ‘where is this GOING?’ There aren’t any major crescendos, there’s nothing explosive here: the tracks just drift and roll, breezing hither and thither, from one passage to the next, without any real sense of direction or trajectory. Credit is due for the ambition and sense of scale which shapes ‘Erosion’. Slightly less for the indulgent, pompous end result.
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