Pure Reason Revolution - Amor Vincit Omnia Review

Average (two stars out of five)

Bands fear labels. Given the wrong label, a band can limit its appeal and even prevent itself from selling records. Even music journalists like myself can struggle with labels at times (since my site is called "Progressive" Melodies, after all). The quickest escape from a label is a complete reinvention, which is what Pure Reason Revolution offers on its latest album, Amor Vincit Omnia. While the band's previous album, The Dark Third, was a spacey rock album with plenty of progression in the songwriting that drew comparisons to Pink Floyd, Amor Vincit Omnia is nearest to an electronica album, with plenty of cheesy synth, programmed drum beats, and fancy production tricks. Alone, this does not lead to a bad album. But when all of the band's instrumental talent is stripped, its progression and intelligence in songwriting forgotten, and its melodies weakened, there's not much left besides the band's hallmark vocal harmonies to keep the interest of a listener hoping for the lush and brooding sound of the band's previous work. In this case, simply taking a risk isn't enough: a band needs to create good music, which it did not do on this album.

It's easy to find the sound of this album just plain annoying. You get plenty of beeps and bloops on the album opener, "Les Malheurs," as well as a programmed drum beat that sounds like it is right out of techno (in other words, as simplistic as they come). In essence, this means that any listener who loves instrumentation will be utterly bored here. Unfortunately, this boredom will continue for the majority of the album. The first song released by the band prior to the album's release, "Victorious Cupid," does provide some real instrumentation, but it's largely hidden under more synth. In a way, it's a combination of the band's new sound and old sound, and while it stands as one of the album's stronger tracks, the ways that it could have been better are numerous.

What really holds a lot of these songs back is the songwriting, which simply isn't as strong as it was on The Dark Third. While that album felt like a musical journey, this sounds like a series of disjointed tracks that don't give the album any sort of logical progression or personality. The album's first single, "Deus Ex Machina," is an annoying track that offers little other than repetitious synth work and poor vocal melodies, especially in the verses. The song improves somewhat in the chorus, where the band's vocal harmonies take over the spotlight, but it's not enough to make you forget the skip button that your finger hovers over. Disconnect is a track that you'll likely want to skip as soon as the track starts thanks to an unbelievably irritating robotic voice saying "Disconnect" over and over again. By the time we get some actual music, the irritation is so severe that it's difficult to find any enjoyment in the song. It may stand as the worst song that I've heard since this site opened. The album's nine-minute track "The Gloaming" is yet another instance of wasted potential that will simply frustrate the listener. After about 45 minutes, the album ends with the piano-driven AVO, though even the piano here is altered in some annoying ways. Though I was initially put off by the album's short running time, it quickly became a relief.

In the end, this is an album that is, at its worst, painfully bad. However, there are moments of enjoyment to be had here, though they are often enjoyable simply because they engender nostalgia of the band's better days. Had the addition of sequencers and synthesizers been the only change, this may have been a good album. However, the songs themselves are often just bad in themselves due to some weak songwriting and production tricks that, rather than adding to the track, simply make them feel disjointed and fake. There's simply no heart in these songs; the music sounds like it is not only performed by robots, but written by them as well. When I heard that this album would fit clearly into electronica, I hoped that this wouldn't ruin the music. It turns out that it didn't: it was just one piece in this simplistic, irritating, and terribly flawed puzzle.

Andrew Kauz
www.progressivemelodies.com