Other Animals - Midnight 76

 Ladies and gents be warned: the album I have for us tonight was pitched to me as "weird, killer... blending elements of Electronic, Industrial, Psychedelic, and Triphop driven by an uptempo Rock sound."Now I don't know about you, but with a description like that, I am immediately cautious. I know most of these elements work pretty well together, but I have never been one for psychedelic, and full disclosure I have no clue what triphop is, so I guess the only way for me to find out is to just dive right in, right? (I suppose I could Google it, but that's no fun for me, and what's worse is that I would be depriving you the joy of reading this brilliant intro while you're sitting on your toilet.)

What is really cool about reviewing this album is that it's another first for Synic Spins. Tonight we have an instrumental concept album. And as a brief aside, I have to quickly mention what a thrill and an honor it is to have you guys be sending me your music spanning all different genres, different parts of the globe, etc. It's really humbling and I want to thank you all for continuing to support me and grant me this opportunity to continue doing this.

Moving on, to quickly sum up what this concept album makes me think of, it would be like an action-packed sci-fi video game soundtrack. It's hard, powerful, and inspires action. I could easily see someone working out at the gym to this, or a LAN party of high school friends shooting aliens together.

I do find that some of the single compositions on this album seem to last for quite a while, with a handful of them exceeding 7 minutes in length, but I can't fault this artist for that, with instrumentals and concept albums alike that is just the nature of the beast. However, song lengths aside I find this album to be the ultimate background music. Like I said in the previous paragraph, it just instills action and power. By its very design it is meant to inspire and motivate.

Some of you might recall me saying in an earlier post (but then again, maybe not, I'm not even sure which of my posts I said this in...) that I don't usually care much for instrumentals. With that said, I bet you would expect me to be bored of this album. I certainly would have expected that. However, the opposite is true. I never once throughout the whole listening experience wished that there were vocals accompanying the instruments. Not once. There's no need for that. There's no room for it. The sound the band has achieved here is so full that it never feels like anything is missing. And the mixing is damn near perfect. I did wish the drums were a hair louder at times, but that could just be because I'm a sucker who has a big fondness for prominent drum parts.

Oh, and one last thing; I have some GREAT news for you all. Do you remember that old one-hit wonder with the specific dance that went along with it, "The Cotton-Eyed Joe?" Well lucky for us, Midnight 76 found Joe's brother: "The Whole Eye Doug." 

Other Animals - Midnight 76

4 - 13 - 2020

1. Just Another Animal (Tracker)

2. Just Another Animal (Imaxx)

3. Just Another Animal (Genetic Lab)

4. I Dig

5. Waxx (Wane)

6. The Whole Eye Doug

7. Just On Other Animals

8. 28

9. Rounds (Imaxx)

10. Waxx (Solstice)

Favorite Track: The Whole Eye Doug

Least Favorite Track: 28