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Corso - (Protect)


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33%


If anyone's reading this review to come to like the album, it’s the best moment to stop. If someone’s a psychofan of Marco Saviolo's projects they can already put a buck on an assassin and contact me via PM to get my address.

You have to be really desperate, narcissist, or at least ignorant to try to promote this type of album on the site like AlterNation. Desperate, perhaps, because so far no one has expressed a positive opinion about PROTECT and they hope for our genre understanding. Narcissist, to judge it as something good that can appeal to everyone. Ignorant, probably, because they don't know what we do here, what we like to distribute, promote or recommend. Believe me, it's probably one of the last items that I could recommend, even if I got paid for it. I guess the artist doesn't even know about it, it's probably label responsible for the promotion... I don't know, I don't even know if I want to know.
Yes, you can see that I approach the subject emotionally. Some will say that it's good - because indifference is the worst...however, it's irritation that I like less and I'm willing to explain where it comes from.

In the promotional description of the disc there are slogans like: spaceships, the nineteenth-century city, towers in the old style, dust, dirt, wind, smoke, thick walls... The first impression's obvious: STEAMPUNK, for this I live, for this I took this job to finally hit on something similar, whoo! I immediately seized it, I wanted to listen to, write about, do it. It was a mistake. Once again, I was reminded that it's better to approach with skepticism and be pleasantly surprised than to get turned on and greatly disappointed.

What I love the most about music creators, is FAITH in the rightness of communication. The Meaning, let's say in general. Then, a range of possibilities opens and it's really irrelevant in which musical direction we go, because each will be good. It can be liked or not, fly into the ear or on the contrary - it doesn't matter, as long as it's real, human tastes are different. Corso sounds like the had one good idea and wanted to stretch it over eight tracks, because mafia knocked on their door and put a barrel to their temple, telling to record it here and now.

That good idea is a beautiful, absolutely sensational harp, an instrument relatively rarely used in music (which is a pity, it has a great potential of powerful registry and wonderful sound). Corso aka Marco Saviolo is making quite a nice use of her. Not too much, not too little, but quite enough. Well, at least, for what they created.

Reading further the promotional description. "Alternative indie music"... I ignore insistently any association with hipsters and tell myself off, because this would be lack of professionalism... harp and synthetic sounds, through ambient to trip hop. Hmm, okay, let's go further. Everyone can generate lots of nice words, now let the music stand up for itself. Well...

In general it's either boring or in style of "Jak się masz, kochanie," by a famous Polish band scoring triumphs in the '80s and '90s. What was supposed to be in climate is poor and secondary. The pace of most of the songs does not change completely and the harmony is so uninteresting that the biggest bore in the history of music called Haydn chuckles in his grave.
Vocals are correct, at most. No spoofs, but it has COMPLETELY NO emotion, what in the music is practically unacceptable. Because that's why music was established. It was a form of expression of emotions and ho, should continue to be, at least the valuable examples. If we lose the emotions, we lose the sense of fun in the game. The essence of what is done.

Lyrics? From what I've heard, they are good, BUT. Please take a look at your shelf with albums or music folder. I'll let my hand be cut off (one of those scoundrels that write now this unfavorable review) that most of them are SYNCRETIC. This means, text layer and musical frame complement each other, creating a certain atmosphere that you like.
And I am to believe a man that sings about the Wise Man while using beat so weak that even a minor pop star with digitally improved voice would keep away from it? I've listened to this record fifteen times, insistently trying to "feel" the music.

I'm ending this lengthy introduction, I start with report on individual tracks. But what to discuss? Actually, I've already said it all. Secondary, boring, unimaginative, reproducing the many other authors that do it a hundred times better. But well, work is work.
Protect. Synthetic sound of the strings... Hmpf. It's a pity, it'd naturally rise the level of album a few steps up, bringing a breath of freshness, but here... Well, everyone uses it, let them be. Beat not that carrying, but bearable. Very nice harmony, which, however, along with dispassionate voice, does not tickle your ears that much. Lyrics are pretty good - in the text layer Corso project defends itself, you have to give it to them.
Learn from the fog would be quite a nice piece - a lovely harp, very skillfully matched synths, beat matching the whole... I would venture to say that it's one of the best positions on the album. If not for the vocals... no falsity, of course not - but you can't say more about it than that it's correct. It brings nothing.
Wise Man, "Jak sie masz, kochanie" style - I have nothing more to add. The desire to escape is intensified by the opening bars of vocals with such brute force, that you can even feel a sore throat that had to accompany the singer. The song could defend itself - it had a good harmony, but then came the joyful "majores" and it all fell apart. Moving on.
Ice Plains, Very bad working day, Special Flower - the same pattern: very light harp, forcible vocal, predictable synths. We already know it from somewhere. Voiceless - I secretly hoped that Corso would display a sense of music and one piece will serve us pure music, convey content without text. Whose mother is hope, we all know.

I still wonder where music of this kind could be used. Too little fancy to delve into this and enjoy. Too poor and not enough carrying to be played in the background at a party. But I know that there are people who could like the disc, and I suspect that within its genre it will defend itself in a way.
Therefore, I recommend discovering it by yourself, who knows? I suppose that another reviewer could be more forgiving, and thus - we were unlucky. Me, that I picked up Corso, Corso that it met me:)

To sum up: try it yourself, reader. Remember that the fact that Corso recorded the album proves that someone believed in him, even if they had a problem with it themselves. You should never be influenced by over-emotional text of an irritated reviewer.

Tracklist:

01. Protect
02. Learn from the fog
03. Wise Man
04. Ice plains
05. Very bad working day
06. Special Flower
07. Voiceless
08. Kingdom
Author:
Translator: kantellis
Add date: 2013-11-29 / Music reviews




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