millionaire - paradisiac
ah ha the return of the 'spinoff from a spinoff band', as millionaire's mainstay is tim vanhamel who sat alongside josh homme in one of his projects, 'eagles of death metal', so tim now resurfaces with his proper band's second album produced by josh homme. a favour returned, that's for sure.
so, given the above clues - take a guess as to how this album sounds ?
yup. pink floyd.
oh all right then, the album features a lot of the josh homme trademark fuzzed up speed driven bass riffs, climatic guitars parts, distorted vocals, chunky chords and a buncha weird studio layers of noise and extreme freakiness. sometimes it all clicks perfectly, like on the opening ''i'm on a high', whereas in other places you wish the band would just settle down and get on with the songs. while tim and josh have drafted in a complete band to lay down the basic rock-n-roll tracks they have then taken said tracks and added some rather intriguing sonic details, samples appear in the headphone listenings, delicate drum machine manipulation, clickety clicks and all manner of phased and stretched noises add to the sheer density of music on offer.
all this however does not detract from the fact that the album consists of 11 hard edged rock songs that will easily appeal to anyone who likes the hard and fast, but melody strong styles of queens of the stone age, and for those that like the unpleasant screamers, then there are a few dips into that groove as well ('wake up the children' - tests the patience if not in the right mood)
there are a couple of songs where tim pulls back from the brink, and realises that there is money to be made with easy on the ear stoner rock monsters, that are suitable for any decent teen-slasher-drug-munching blockbuster, so expect to hear the excellent 'rise and fall' blasting out of your local movie house within the next 12 months. oh, and 'ballad of pure thought' is totally gorgeous slice of psychedelic ambience, and if given its deserved radio play will make a whole set of fans of the oc program buy a totally unsuitable album for their collections, as the sweet-n-innocent melody will con certain folks into believing that millionaire is the new phantom planet, they are anything but, you have been warned.
they are however a totally on the ball riff heavy groove laden monster. i urge you all to ditch your aspirations of wealth and join up with this motley gang of money launderers, your stereo system will love you for it, but your neighbours wont !
glorious headfuck rock-n-roll of the highest order.