Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3 / 5 Reviewer: Louis Ducharme |
Yoda once said “In life, friends you call, there are, and friends you do not.†Likewise with music, there is the music you like, and the music you play. Unfortunately, The Devil, You + Me falls into the former. The album is ok, however, there are too many skipable tracks to warrant revisiting.
The Notwist do a nice job merging styles and using a cacophony of different instruments and noises – acoustic guitars and keyboards run together throughout. The vocals are plain; they are all sung in the same tone and the same couple of notes on each track. Mostly, the album just feels rushed. For example, “Alphabets†has potential, but it feels undeveloped. The title track is pleasant, but you don’t miss it once it’s gone, likewise with ‘On Planet Off.’ In fact, 95% of the album would qualify as “good but not great,†a summation as forgettable as the album itself. The songs are like the young Jedi Padawan who is too lazy to follow the more difficult path of the light side, and therefore, will never become as powerful as possible.
The nature of the album makes it hard to get emotionally involved in it; it lacks soul. It’s like watching, but not participating. The Notwist try to innovate with a collection of sounds here, but as Yoda once said, “Innovation a great album makes not,†or something like that…
