Scott Kelly - The Wake (Neurot)
2/5
By: Charlie Potter
What is it with aged slow metallers making relaxing over produced acoustic music? What are they trying to prove?
But to be honest, if I want to hear an aged metaller do a boring acoustic album about anything, then it's a wake. Scott Kelly has come off a lot better than his band mate Steve Von Till in their recent solo efforts, released a week apart from each other - Scott Kelly has gone for a much more stripped back approach without any textured background bits, and I think it's paid off. It's meant that he has been able to focus more on the melody and lyrics, and as such the lyrics are far stronger, there are not so many metaphors on The Wake - the poetry is much more in the descriptiveness.
The album is also quite short at 34 minutes, which I think suits the sound pretty well. This way the album acts like a kind of quick tablet of relaxed acoustic music. It's one thing to release solo noodlings, but when they pass the 50 minute mark this is often sheer arrogance on the musician's part.
It's odd, I can't tell if I only tolerate this album because it's Scott Kelly even though I will openly admit that I didn't really like the last Neurosis album that much. I definitely think that Scott and Steve doing these solo projects, as well as taking the Tribes of Neurot thing further and further, has only made Neurosis suffer, and I really think that it is worth the band channelling all the energy they have into Neurosis rather than these solo projects. This may cause arguments in the band, but if a band like Neurosis aren't having disagreements, they need to be trying harder.
However The Wake does still suffer from the same melodrama that has hit Mr. Von Till, and the wavering, croaky gentleness in his voice is still annoying if a little more personable than Steve's. By the time you have got to the end of this short record you'll pretty much have no energy ever again. It's hard to escape the overwhelming drabness of this album, and it's only overcome if you invest all you concentration in the melodies, which do differ from track to track - it's just unfortunate they ultimately the same overall tone.
The album does come across as a very personal gesture, perhaps even a little too personal for public consumption. I don't feel I have any comprehension of Scott Kelly's emotions on this recording, and I'm not sure that I want to. I have dipped in and out of thinking that this album is OK and not, but ultimately I think that the times in which I have thought it was good I was merely thinking, 'hmm actually this bit is not that bad...' Overall I think this is the sort of record that is going to mean a hell of a lot to very few people.
Artists in this article: Scott Kelly
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