10

Interesting.

It’s difficult not to get incredibly irritated at a band who’s press release claims the guitarist and lead singer of the band made up the word ‘Unonou’ for the album title and is then quoted as telling the listener to “think for themselves”, saying, “ I hate being specific. It’s boring.” Actually, it is the kind of thing that induces the listener to ‘think for themselves’, albeit just enough to turn the record off in protest. That said, it would be a shame not to give this album a chance; it’s obvious the frontman’s statement rings true to some extent, he’s not kidding about hating being specific, as the album refuses to stick to one genre for more than a few minutes at a time.

“Unonou” may be only seven tracks long but they are pretty much all epic length and more skittish than a dog in heat; ranging from metal riffs and stoner rock bass lines on opening track ‘Unonou’ and ‘A High or A Low’ to 80s style epic synth solo’s on ‘The Emerald Snow of Sleep’ and classic psychedelic 70s rock on the almost sludgy paced ‘Spinning Temple Shifting’. The result is a densely layered album with one foot in old school rock and the other foot floating in space; in fact sometimes there are so many ideas thrown into the mix that it’s almost overwhelming.

OK, I’ll admit that I really didn’t want to like this record: it’s pompous, smug and over the top, especially on tracks like the glam/prog inspired ‘Down From A Cloud, Up From The Ground’ but in the end I just couldn’t help myself; it’s epic, uplifting and brimming over with brilliant and complex fret wankery. The only down side is that at first the vocals take a bit of getting used to, in fact on first listen they just don’t seem to fit often squeaky and very shouty at the top of the range, they can grate a bit, but the more listens you give the album and the more depths you discover the easier on the ear they seem. Overall though, this is a varied and interesting album that challenges on first listen but delivers on tunes and gets better with repeated listens.