As I was preparing to review the album “A Virtual Landslide” by Pete Molinari this week I ran into a bit of trouble. I had little or nothing to say about it. It’s accomplished enough, there are some nice tracks but for the most part it’s just, well…kind of blah. Not that I am against writing negative reviews, I love ripping into tripe. That’s where the problem lies though, there’s nothing really that bad about it. Kind of hard to fill 500 words with “it’s okay”.
Luckily, last night I came across an EP that saved me from having to slog through that review. It was “Spectrum, 14th Century” by Final Fantasy that came to the rescue. A five song offering with a whopping run time of 17 1/2 minutes, but it’s a pretty great 17 1/2 minutes.
This is a concept album…or rather, a concept EP whose conceit is that the recording took place in various locations around the mythical “Spectral Countryside” (with the help of members of Beirut). Each song describes aspects of “Spectrum” life, the city, people and beliefs of daily occurrences of the citizens.
I know, it sounds pretentious, it’s not.
The music is big and full (thanks to Beirut’s horn section) which works surprisingly well with singer Owen Pallet’s rather genteel voice. You don’t expect to hear this kind of massive, orchestral sound from a pretty unassuming EP (seriously, the packaging looks as though it was printed on a home copier and slapped together by the band). It’s really beautiful stuff.
It’s a really fun, funny, quirky, wonderful collection of songs. The EP format is perfect as it’s too short for the “concept” to get stale. It spells great things for an LP (which is coming soon). Plus, the album is only $8.00 so…you win either way.
