The Out_Circuit – Pierce The Empire With A Sound

I’m not artsy. It’s rare that I find an experimental band that is attempting to push the musical boundaries that I truly enjoy. Instead, I often find them forgettable and somewhat boring. The Out_Circuit are yet another band that is attempting to push the boundaries of rock; and once again, I find it really quite boring.

The album is a mixture of post-hardcore and ambient music, creating a bi-polar combinations that sees The Out_Circuit switching from heavy, hard hitting moments to mellow, atmospheric segments. It alternates from the aggressive Thrice-like opener to the five minute piano driven opus that works around the female vocals of The Beauty Pill‘s Rachel Burke. At times there seems to be a middle ground, like on The Contender (featuring Dustin Kensrue’s vocals) that is built with some extreme distortion and disjointed rhythms but for the most part they keep to one end of the extreme.

There is some skill found within Pierce The Empire With A Sound, the problem is that is they seem to be trying to do way too much. It’s unable to stick with one solitary style and suffers from it’s in cohesiveness. Not only that, but the fifty minute album drags on for what seems like forever. While I’ve successfully been able to start the album more than a dozen times, I think I’ve only been able to sit through the entire thing on one or two occasions. The sporadic beats, the heavy distortion, incomprehensible vocals delivered at a whispered scream, it seems all too randomly thrown together and fails to properly propel the album forward. Then there’s tracks like the five and a half minute instrumental, The Hexagon (which is based on this picture I guess) or the very slow We which are far too bland to really captivate my attention that normally made me reach for the skip button.

This album really isn’t for me. Far too artistic, far too far-fetched and far too bland for my tastes. However, some people are loving the post-hardcore/ambient combination. So fans of the likes of Thrice orThursday may love it, but if you’ve read any of my reviews for them you should know I’m not a huge fan of them either.