The experiment in writing outside of my comfort zone continues! The Dreaded Press have just published my review of the first half of Djevara‘s third album The Rising Tide, which is entitled Corsa Al Ribasso.
The idea of releasing one album in two parts is quite an interesting one. The Rising Tide seems not to be so much a double album in the style of Guns And Roses’ Use Your Illusion as it does a pair of EPs released around the same time. The epic press release I received along with the CD (which tried to make the band out to be a cross between Fugazi and At The Drive In fronted by Jesus and Mother Theresa) suggested that this part of the album is more challenging than the second but did not specify a release date for the second part. So I wonder whether this, admittedly less commercial, half is not an attempt at testing the waters… seeing whether the band’s audience will follow them.
Business model geekery aside, to say that I hated Corsa Al Ribasso would be something of an understatement. Back when I used to go to tiny out-of-the-way music festivals in the backwoods of the Swiss countryside I saw and heard my fair share of genuinely shocking acts : Goth bands who had to “rewind the backing tape” in order to do an encore, angry fourteen year-olds doing RATM, decent techno acts who hired a leather trouser-clad wanker to bellow out their samples… the list goes on and on but Djevara’s album is right up there as far as memorable failures go. It is relentlessly hopeless.
Ruthless Culture 
Hi there, it’s the ’emotionless vocalist’ from the record you slayed. Don’t worry, I’m not coming back for revenge or to argue, I appreciate the risks of putting stuff out and it’s genuinely interesting seeing how differently people see/take things, especially when you don’t know them. To be honest I just felt I had to comment because nothing I’ve been part of creating has ever generated anywhere near as much … venom? distaste?… as in this review, and it’s quite an amazing experience. It fascinated me that in the anonymous web, the artists never respond or acknowledge. There’s got to be more to be gained from the process. It’s a truism that bad reviews are almost always more interesting to read than good ones, and in a way it’s life affirming that music as art can still generate quite this much (even negative) emotion, and when you’re on the receiving end its shocking yet strangely not really as painful as you’d expect. By far and away this is our most polarizing record – receiving some of our best ever, and yet also our worst ever, reviews. It’s quite funny to think that these people were all listening to the same thing. I’m genuinely sorry it was such a bad experience for you, but thanks for listening anyway (and I prefer a million times a slating from someone who obviously listened than the nod from someone who didn’t)… and the Jesus/Mother Theresa statement did make me smile. No one of us would pretend to be a saint! Good luck with your writing… and just hope no-one ever reviews it…
Bass
ps the chanting is sub-Saharan African, not native American, where my family is from, though I don’t doubt that this may be “hilarious” from certain Western cultural viewpoints
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