Gargantuan is the eighth album by Amplifier and the duo's first since the covid shutdown changed everything. They are back as the core duo of Matt Brobin and Sel Balamir.
The album opens with Gateway that has full on post-hardcore blast beat drums and squalls of guitars, gentle vocals go on top of, in a slightly unsettling way, that the synths only add too, while stretching out into several stratospheres at once.
Invader almost has a James Bond theme feel to the main musical theme, the vocals take it into a far different direction, almost cut up lyrics shards of ideas that don't always coalesce, they stare at the sky once more hoping for some escape.
Blackhole takes long tonal synths with busy drums working around above and below those tones, on a journey deep into the heart of the Black Hole, the vocals sound far poppier even as the dark tale in them unfolds.
King Kong has a funky twist to the guitars and synths while a post-modern version of the King Kong myth is told in a very wonky pop way.
Pyramid is the pair playing musical triangles, triads of notes and chords for this dark tale of the huge global pyramid scheme, making the pinnacle where the masses have nothing and the fewest have the most, glittering gold an elusive mirage.
Entity will crush everyone in the way of total global domination of the crushed riff and monumentally forceful drums grinding your brain to dust, bleeding into Guilty Pleasure that's ready to break down your last inhibition to admitting to loving the heavy sound enveloping you, sonic miasmas are your nirvana.
Cross Dissolve float through ether, finding a miraculous funky guitar figure to hook your vessel too, like an evanescent dreamscape.
The album closes with Long Road an almost Cluster like synth and drum pattern for this trip down the long road of life, all the observances down Avenues how far down it can you go. Can the backing choir aid your ability to get to the end of that road.
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