Album Review : Imbogodom - The Metallic Year
- Written by Rob Barker
Thanks to developments in computer technology it’s easy to forget that cutting and sampling audio tracks was once more of a challenge than just opening a file and clicking in the right place. With The Metallic Year, Imbogodom seem intent on reminding their audience that this was not always the case. Formed by Alexander Tucker and Daniel Beban, Imbogodom rely on the archaic technique of tape editing, with Beban having experimented with the method during his employment as a radio engineer with the BBC.
Opening with brooding, storm-like tones, it’s clear from the outset that The Metallic Year leans more towards the side of the experimental. That said, the duo create more than simple swathes of noise, with the album’s first real track, ‘Unseen Ticket’, immediately drawing you in with enveloping minor key piano and guitar sounds mixed in with a sea of ambient sounds. From a listener’s standpoint the key problem with album could be its lack of traditional musical content, with melody and rhythm taking a backseat to collections of found sounds and discordant tones.
While on the surface the album may be low on musical tradition, The Metallic Year still does what all good music should do - it evokes emotions and inspires creativity, with tracks like ‘The Endless Body’ seeming perfectly suited to sound tracking a horror movie thanks to its dark, unsettling tones.
Though it’s clear that a lot of time and effort has gone into the album, it seems as though Imbogodom are just gluttons for punishment, using such time consuming methods to create a record that could just have easily been produced digitally, in around half the time. Impressive as it is that the record was produced in such a painstaking manner, it makes you wonder what the duo could have created without these self imposed restrictions, bringing more creativity, rather than craftsmanship, into the equation.