Sunday, June 6, 2010

5 June 2010

Aare Undo

Ans. Andur „Kiletron“ review

The band Ans. Andur was formed in a small town called Paide. The group got together when two other bands called Rooza Öökull and PillSkill fell apart and it consists of Mihkel Kirss, Madis Kirss, Gert Pajuväli and Madis Aesma. It is an electro-oriented band with shades of pop, rock and alternative music. Quite a number of confusing elements that are bound to offer diversity yet again. But how does it deliver? Kiletron is their third and to date last album.

The album starts off with a song titled (1.) Reede. The title is promising, had high hopes of something that I could lose myself into, but I was left emotionless. The song is about going to a party, but it sounds a bit too depressing for that (and do not get me wrong, I can absolutely enjoy a depressing song). The next song goes by the name (2.) Start Stopp which turned out to be one of my favourites of the album. Magnificent rhythm with vocals I could grasp. Furthermore (3.) Melodraama is a song which I expected to be slower and more dramatic, but they added a nice twist by making this song one that is rhythmic and cheerful. Then comes

(4.) Praha Kevad, a song from which I also expected much, and I was not let down. Contains a reference to Prague’s spring of 1968 and how things have changed since then, the rhythm and tone elements are also fitting for a song as such. Whereas (5.) Mu Binoklis completely changes the tragic view of the last song, being a bit more country-like, something that could be put into the movie Smokey and the Bandit. Moreover, (6.) 100 reminds me much of Vennaskond’s Maailma Hümn, only a bit slower and with a dominating midi keyboard sound. (7.) Marko Kristal is a purely instrumental piece. A slow song, sounds beautiful and meaningful. But thenagain, it is a kind of song that would fit into The Sims as background music. In the song

(8.) Ester the vocalist kept saying „Ester, Ester /.../“ whereas the rest of the song escaped from me due to silent vocals. But the song had a fast rhythm that would definitely cause hippies of the 21st century to dance J. (9.) Puhkepäev talks about the joys of a day off. The song delivers mixed messages – It makes me want to stay in bed for the day, but it is rhythmic and on the other hand wakes me up and makes me want to activities on my day off, but either way, it is a song that that cannot leave a person emotionless. (10.) Sügisene Meloodia is a slow, a jazz-like song. It sounds like a song which would be really meaningful, but I cannot quite get it, leaving me feeling empty and uneasy. Now (11.) (Sa olid mu viimase leveli) Lõpuboss is a song that really got to me. Since I have spent a portion of my life gaming, this is quite possibly one of the most attractive song titles ever. But the song itself had a too dominating empty midi keyboard sound, vocals start half-way into the song and the meaning escapes me yet again. I also suppose they sampled some music from Super Mario Brothers. (12.) Suhkur is definitely the best songs to end the album with. Obviously the „out of sugar“ metaphor has some kind of deep meaning, but it is fun to listen to even without grasping it.

Now, to take the album as a whole, I found that it offers quite a lot of diversity – offers songs movingly deep to foot-tappingly rhythmic. Genres reach from basic electro and indie to rock and even country. One of the main flaws would be the quite-often-silent vocals and undecipherable wordplay. My personal dislike is the often too much dominating midi keyboard sound. But all in all it must be said that a new band from a small town has made quite a name for itself with its previous albums and this one, offering something for different musical tastes

NOTE: Yes, I do realise that that this might sound somewhat like my first review, but without knowing I picked a somewhat similar band.

1 comment:

bv said...

Yes, the main elements of the review are the same - song-by-song coverage, emphasis on personal feeling, spotting the danceability. And somewhat idiosyncratic application of "electro" 8) What does stick out here is the suggestion (or actually a couple of them) that the music can be used for soundtracking movies of computer games.