Primal Static

Add Date: January 26

Artist: Primal Static

Album: The Curtain of Many Faces

Label: Self-released

Genre: Blues Rock

Comments: A Joke, presented by New Heaven Salesman.

Q: What's the Difference between Primal Static and White Stripes?
A: About three weeks of post-production work. (ba-dum kish)

But seriously, while it's a creative album that has its advantages (as in I don't feel compelled to say "just listen to the Black Keys it's basically the same thing done better"), this is not an album that goes down well in the first listen. It doesn't help that the first three songs are completely awful, though largely due to the fact that there is literally no differentiation between the audio layers, making everything sound tw0-dimensional. I was perfectly ready to write this off when the fourth track started.

Granted, the production problems remained, but there's genuinely good instrumentation, and melding of blues and rock that's fairly unique. Really, though, the standout track is #5, "Dream Arabic," an instrumental piece that plays to Primal Static's apparent strength of good simple lines that, by themselves, make me want to knock people off the road. The rest of the album is pretty decent, with another instrumental, "Blue Orpheus," also sounding above average (if you haven't figured it out yet, I really hate the male singer for Primal Static). Overall, it's hard for me to really give an opinion of this band when there are so many problems with it, production-wise.