MEGALOPSY - The Abstract Machine

[DJ.Zero]

this guys have grown up alot they are from my country

its good to see they made such a a good dark album!!

[Jon Cocco]

MEGALOPSY: The ABSTRACT MACHINE

2004

FULL REVIEW

 

This album is dark psytrance with a decent amount melodies, but not many or many layers of them. There are atmospheric intro and outro segments before and after each track. I enjoy and find all of them interesting. After the first two songs, the artists generally change their style up several times throughout the tracks. This was one of the better dark psytrance releases of 2005, a very weak year I might add.

 

INTRO - I like the intro. It sets the mood nicely. Short, strange, omnious, and fairly mysterious. I suppose for an intro it's decent. However, the same cheap effect used to alter the so-called alien voice here... is used in Insane Clown Posse's six main Jokers Cards albums. The voice sounds similar to ICP's albums too. C+

 

OBSCURE WARLOCK - Starts out interesting, but I don't care for this song. It's TOO repetitive. It has a distorted melody that plays through-out which I don't find all that catchy. The psy-sounds compliment it, and the song never seems to really go anywhere. The ambient/atmospheric sounds toward the end are very well placed and set-up the opening to the third track nicely. To get to that cool bit is a bitch however IMHO. C

 

Fractal Circus - Better than the previous track. It's more interesting, involving, and it changes more. Just slightly into the first two minutes the whole song seems to change. Things are starting to get better. The kickdrum just stops and some cool melodies commpliment a transition. At 5:00 minutes into the song, those melodies are catchy. This is one of my few fave songs on the album. B-

 

GOBLIN GRINS - More aggresive than previous tracks. The distorted melody that comes in arond 2:00 I don't care for. I like when the beats stop and there are these interesting, dark transition moments in the track. There are several transition moments here. The chime-esque melodies are very catchy, like a filtered piano. When the track slows down, the whole song feels darker. I really like how this song develops after 5:00! The song becomes so much better all of a suden, and all they did was slow something down. That's one thing I very much like about this album: the songs move around; change; develops. As with previous tracks, an interesting outro transition is fused together into the following song. B-

 

JUGGLING SPHERES - Like ringing a high pitched bell, there is a very catchy *ding* sound here that compliments the song. There also exists a sample from the film Pulp Fiction. Nice. I like how they didn't over-use it too. Unfortunatley, I don't feel several tracks on this album including this one, engage, or are nearly as arresting as some others are. The second half reminds me a bit of Infected Mushroom with the melodies. All in all, not one of my faves on the album. My favorite part is easily the transition at the end. Wow, great transition! Can they make a whole song as catchy as some of their track ending/transitions?, that could be great: dark, atmopsheric, downtempo trance. C+

 

PACHAMAMA - The structure starts similar to Goblin Grins, but with fewer beats or b.p.m. The baseline, beat, and overall song I find repetitive and tiresome for the first four minutes. The radio voices mixed in are catchy. Some squeeky and psy-sounds around the kickdrum make this track sound similar to much dark psytrance out there. The song becomes more attractive once the melodies come in around 4:00, but nothing great. The grainy, radio-esque voice sample helps, but by then it's too late for me. The song never seems to take off or really go anywhere interesting. C

 

MONKEY SUPERNOVA - It's darker then the previous one, and certainly more developed. It doesn't really seem to go anywhere interesting until after a cool little sample appears in the middle, reminding the listener of maybe a monkey traveling through outer space. I suppose the monkey goes to Hell or into a blackhole because the song gets darker. One of the better or tracks on the album. The theme is at least original I think. A very catchy part is when the music slows slows down before speeding up in the second half, and when the track ends very DARK, with strong industrial ambience and atmosphere.. this curious segment cleverly fronts the next song. C+

 

SPACE CADET - This is arguably the best song on the album. I like how it starts...DARK and with those melodies... A fairly good amount of layers. It's spooky, aggressive, and rough. I WISH there were MORE involved DARK tracks like this one and GOBLIN GRINS on THIS album... songs with more emotion, personality, and character. This track is arguably the best song on the album. Seriously, I strongly feel that if you don't like this track, track 2, or track 3, this album is definitely NOT for you at all. The pretty flute sound seems almost ironic here.. as if almost to give "hope" to a rather draining abyss of lost souls. I'm being more poetic there, it's just the visual I get. This song is more psychedelic, with what appears to be a bit more layers and mixing. The liquid-ish sounds and sound skipping is a nice touch too. Details are nice, and this is one of the several songs on the album that seems to executes it's many VERY well. B

 

DEVENIR-COSMOS - Is it me or did the album just start to really spice things up a bit toward the end? Not until these last three songs have I felt the album becoming bettter then initially thought. I think these several tracks go together very well. it's like less filler and morequality tracks back-to-back. Also, the style and tone seems to have gotten a shade darker, and veered close to dark/evil. *WoW* the first time I used the word EVIL the whole time on this album. Don't get too excited, it's never Xenomorph-evil, however the album seems to get, well darker towards the end. The actual song is pretty cool too. C+

 

OUTRO / COSMOS - Nice closing. Why can't it be longer?! The echoed clapping and psy-sounds at around 2:00 are fairly catchy. I think it would have been great if after it fades, it suddenly returns again and *WHAM* with more layers and energy to compliment it than before. It's feels so short at 4:14. Oh well. C+

 

In conclusion, this albums worth checking out if you're into dark psytrance. I don't find this album great, but it's definitely above average and one of the better darkpsy albums of 2005. I think some of the intros/outros around each track are imaginative and interesting. They're different and intriging, and occasionally more interesting than the track that follows. It would be nice to hear some dark psytrance tracks as interesting as their intro/outro segment bits. This album seems to have some fillers or songs they didn't really have that many interesting ideas to do with. I think if these artists focus on the more catchy elements of their debut, and capitalize on that.. (melodies, atmosphere, intro's/outro's, take more risks, get more intricate, darker, catchy, melodie, throw in some surprise moments, basically just *WoW* us) maybe they can release something that grabs far more people than they did with this.

 

Track faves are 3, 4, 8.

 

My overall Grade/Score: C+ or a 7.7 out of 10.

[dmtree]

in my opinion, this is not one of the best dark albums of 2005. nowhere near.

 

not psychedelic enough.

 

[Jon Cocco]

in my opinion, this is not one of the best dark albums of 2005. nowhere near.

 

not psychedelic enough.

410255[/snapback]

I'm not surprised it's been almost a year since anyone's posted on this. I showed it off to several friends (when they asked to hear some recent darkpsy) who ended up deleting the entire thing. The concensus was that it's too repetitive and boring. There are some decent parts but it's not worth going through the entire song to get to these "parts." I presume they meant intros/outros because to me those stood out the most on this album between the tracks.

 

Anyway, I felt this was one of the better dark psytrance albums of 2005, and that year sucked for dark psytrance! In order for me to make a top 5 best darkpsy 2005 list I'd have to list 5 albums that never achieved above a 7-8 score with me. I bought this album because I was desperate to hear some new pretty good dark psy, but I found little to like on it and threw it away for months. Someone hear on this thread made me realize that you shouldn't jump to conclusions so soon. I took it out of my collection, put it in my disk man, and found it far more likeable than first listen. Throughout the week I heard the album several more times. Now it's been almost a year or so.

 

Truth is, I think the label and artists here initially thought this was much better in the beginning. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, it's OKAY, but so are thousands of other albums out there. For something to stand out....TALPA is great. This is OKAY. There are some good parts but overall it's not good IMHO.

 

There's just too much better stuff out there. Also, there's stuff much worse than this too so I'll keep it fair.

 

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone anymore. It has it's moments. Several songs are decent and it's generally repetitive and uninteresting to me.

[Sawfly]

Totally had forgot about this one too. Very nice album.