THOMAS GILES: Pulse (Album Review)
By Mikhail Madnani
Release Date: February 1st, 2011 Record Label: Metal Blade Records My rating:
Pulse is Tommy Rogers' solo album under the name Thomas Giles. Rogers is the vocalist of Between the Buried and Me and contrary to his music with BTBAM, this record is not a metal album. There are a few metal influences on two tracks (Hamilton Anxiety Scale and Medic). This album showcases Rogers' song writing and vocal abilities. When a front man of a band decides to do a solo album, there are usually two options. The former being a record that is within the genre of the band and the latter being something completely different. This album falls under the second category. This is a keyboard centric album and metal fans that are close minded about how music should be, need to stay away from this album and can stop reading further. Tommy has broken boundaries with this record and has shown us something that I thought we would never see, Progressive music blending well with club music. Tommy has proclaimed his love for Radiohead and Muse before and their influence along with a certain Trent Reznor influence can be felt on this album. Rogers plays every instrument on this album but his vocals are the true winner here. His range is mind-blowing and he goes from falsettos to wails to growls putting in his best vocal performance ever here. The songs have their own lyrical and musical character and it is no surprise why this album has been receiving great reviews from almost everyone. I would classify this under progressive-electronic-ambient-indie. The only drawback on this album is the track Medic which is the only true heavy song on this album. This album reeks of David Gilmour as well in tracks like 'Suspend the death Watch'. I cannot emphasize how awesome this album is enough because after each listen I end up with a new stand out favourite track and about 10 listens into this album I can safely say that Thomas Giles is one of the few musicians who can stand side by side with the likes of Trent Reznor without any shortcomings. While most people may feel that this is overproduced and that there are too many effects in many songs, I feel that these are necessary for this kind of project. Barring all the instruments, Tommy's vocals are the centre of attention and shine throughout. The arrangements are intelligent and the melodies are nothing short of brilliant. The album speaks miles about his talent as a composer and the amount of soul he has as a musician. 'Sleep Shake', 'Reverb Island' and 'Hamilton Anxiety Scale' seem to have been written at the same time since they flow well together. These 3 songs remain my favourites from the album. The only other albums that impressed me as much as this did in terms of creativity and song writing are Cynic's Traced in Air and Devin Townsend Project's KI. I hope this masterpiece gets the recognition it deserves and doesn't just go under the radar with most fans as a typical modern electronic record. Tweet | ||||||||||||||
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