It's all been done before
and, as a knee-jerk reaction to the explosion of electronic
music, all but a few refuse to look forward.
While most bands feared
that drum machines and the like would take the place of
musicians, Pitchshifter and others sought to use these new
tools to do things that humans couldn't do.
The problem was that they
still weren't quite sure what to do with this whole new area
of sound to explore. Thank goodness, then, for Miocene.
Their debut album, A
Perfect Life With a View of the Swamp - a loving tribute to
London - is not so much a breath of fresh air as a sonic
tornado of dizzying time signatures, needle-sharp riffs and
frenzied electronics, lunging aggressively into uncharted
territory without trying to hold onto the rails.
The London-based band have
come a long way since their debut EP Refining the Theory,
released back in 2000.
Cellular Memory in 2002
made Miocene stick out like a sore thumb among their
contemporaries such as Lost Prophets and Hundred Reasons.
The success of those bands
drove them to release a brooding, fiercely underground
record of epic tracks fuelled by jazz, hip-hop and
drum'n'bass.
As singer Ben claims, "it
definitely made us realise that we could go off in our own
direction and still be able to release records."
What that EP promised, the
album, finally released this year, delivers.
The more straight-up rock
songs spiral from their point of origin until you forget
where it started, evoking Pink Floyd at their finest.
Then, without warning,
they plunge you into an intense junglist workout that even
the most amphetamine-riddled raver wouldn't be able to keep
up with.
And next in the pipeline
is a remix project featuring the likes of jazz-metal nutters
SikTh being let loose on some of the album tracks, as well
as side a project exploring drum'n'bass.
Yet more examples of the
unconventional path that Miocene are choosing to tread.
Who knows where it will
lead them, but it'll be bloody interesting finding out.