(05 Feb 2011)
I have no idea if The9thCell is a real band or just one person, but, judging by the facelessness of the instrumentation, I'd assume that it's a single guy. Now, I'm not saying that music composed and recorded by one person is necessarily bad, becuase it isn't. There is a new Mithras demo song which was recorded solely by Leon Macey and it's absolutely awesome. In fact, one-member bands can be much better than the work of a whole band. On the other hand, they can also be much worse than any band in existence, if the musician just doesn't care enough. This project, on the other hand, seems to show enough dedication to have been great, but the dedication is entirely wasted on the superficial.
As you enter The9thCell's website, you are greeted with a comparison of George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. Now, I don't like either very much, but, damn... that's low. In one move, this project has reduced its potential audience to angsty impressionable teens, and managed to tell everyone that the founder of the band/whatever is a SOAD wannabe, and this is only the site's opening page. Nevertheless. I ploughed on. I downloaded this album and started listening to it.
And here is where my previous comment about dedication starts making sense. You see, the songs are incredibly layered and the production is very crisp, with just a hint of a human element so that it doesn't sound completely sterile. There is always something happening in the layers. There's always either some random guitar noises under the riffs, or 5965553742,6 backing vocals at any moment, or some effect, and they all fit together. But they are fitted onto the most directionless and unnecessary music imaginable. It does manage to be at the same time generic and hard to label. Imagine Korn doing 9-minute-long songs that are slapped together at random without any sort of movement, with a load of NIN thrown into the mix for good measure and backed by 50 million Jonathan Davis clones who won't do any of the things that make Jonathan Davis unique and you have The9thCell. Any sort of riffs or interesting details or fucking structure are completely lost in the general muck.
Nevertheless, despite all the disappointments, the first half of All.Merry.Cah actually shows some potential. I would have given that about 2.5-3.5. What really ruins the album is its second half. After the first 5 minutes of "A Match Forged In Heaven And Perfected In Hell", the whole thing goes to shit. All teh songs beyond this point are more like a mix of random chunks of sound rather than anything else. Now, I understand this is supposedly done to conclude a 3 part trilogy (?), but it renders the whole thing unlistenable.
The real problem here is that, well, yes, I could just say that this album is an absolute peace of crap and go on with my life, but, underneath all that is terrible about release, there is some really good music. This album has some really beautiful arrangements and creates a real feeling of massiveness, and that deserves credit. The songs may be terrible, but the sounds within them are inspiring.
Standout tracks:
Broke New World (Parts I and II)
Singularity Feeder
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