When a album is ready, it's ready, no matter what time of the year it is.
Upon release of Opium Denn's 9-track debut Demarkation, the weather is getting a little cooler and there's a time change.
What's also cool is the psychedelic direction this elusive artist has decided to take us with this record, in the groove of Pink Floyd.
It's unfortunate that I didn't (still don't) have access to drugs so I can go along on the trip with these guys, but that shouldn't really make a difference -- I say to myself with fake conviction -- because after listening to this album repeatedly over time, I can tell you where they're taking me and which tracks I tend to go back to because there is plenty to grab onto here.
For instance, the album starts off with the first of three variations of the song I Am A Feeling which has the pop hook every album tries to go for as it's part of the vision of New York's Opium Denn.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBTOO_cPvnc[/embed]
The song itself is very much a rock standard and doesn't have very much imagination to it. I say this because the melody is so dependent on being stylish that it leaves these broad gaps that can only be filled with flash over substance.
The variations on the melody really don't do much to improve on the track or much more than filler to the next thing, taking up what I feel is too much space in the album, when it could have just been left as the opening track.
But the one that really gets me good has to be Leaf, which accompanies the video and since I'm a visual guy, this creates more depth in the song for me.
It gives me feel like I'm looking in through the windows of miniature houses and tiny lives, giving me a peek into stories I didn't know were there.
Skip one great track over to Drone, and you have something that lights up a session like nothing else, with it's simplicity, tapping into rock and then backroom blues, showing off their ability to construct captivating instrumentals. For me, it ends too soon but not without tapping into another pop hungry track with Eyes To The Sky.
By this point in the record, I'm still not very sure where I am and that's okay because so far, things are pretty mellow and the surprises are pleasant.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/144088540" params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]Now, I'm a guy who really gets a kick out of driving my point and forcing it on others, a fascist quality of mine I'm pretty proud of where I say that the meat of this release is really from tracks one to six, where the filler track I refer to could make the beginning and the end because anything after that is pretty lack-luster as standard rock blues.
Of course, the theatricality of Opium Denn doesn't really come in vocally until the title track Demarkation, which we could have used a little bit more of in some of those other songs because that's where the Phantom Of The Opera appeal the band has, that air of mystery works well.
But again, being left in the middle of nowhere with these guys is familiar and certainly sticks with me and at the very least, what more could you ask for?