CD: Shape Shift (2015)
Score: Excellent
Label: Relapse Records
Released: October, 2015
Tracks / Album Length: 9 tracks / 56 mins.
Composer: Zombi (Steve Moore, A.E. Paterra)
Special Notes: Also available on CD, LP, and cassette tape.
Review:
Steve Moore (Cub) and A.E. Paterra’s non-film album draws heavily from the instrumental sounds of Goblin, Tangerine Dream, and Fabio Frizzi (and maybe a little Stomu Yamashta), but each track is distinct in both design and tone, ultimately making Shape Shift feel like a newly discovered prog-rock concept album from the early 1980s.
Paterra’s drums and Moore’s electric bass showcase their obvious performance skills (the duo’s work in “Total Breakthrough” is especially brilliant), but then there’s the subtleties in other instrumentation, and a crazy fidelity to specific synth nuances that admittedly overtake tracks beyond their natural lengths (such as “Siberia II,” which is heavily cyclical at nearly 15 mins.).
And yet it all works, as drums, bass, electric guitar, gyrating synths and elliptical motifs induce a trance state, especially the multi-layered “Metaverse” with its unrelenting ostinato and fat, drippy synth chords. There’s no doubt Shape Shift is made for a live if not vinyl experience, featuring a riveting music that needs to be played loud
© 2015 Mark R. Hasan. This review originally appeared in the October 2015 issue of Rue Morgue magazine.
Additional Links:
Editor’s Blog — Composer on IMDB — Composer Filmography
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