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December 9, 2024


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Song of Zarathustra
The Birth Of Tragedy (Troubleman Unlimited)

By: Jeb Branin

More and more bands with a screamo/thrash/math/whatever vibe are trying to explore and expand the sound, something definitely admirable. Obviously a lot of this experimentation is going to flop. Take SONG OF ZARATHUSTRA for example. They interject keyboards into the mix (goth flavored screamo maybe?). They keys are stellar and work great, adding a lot of flavor to the music. So from one perspective you could argue their attempt at distinctiveness works. Unfortunately the keys are all that work. S.O.Z. don't really do anything wrong per se, but they just don't do anything (other than the keys) right, either. Their sound is a carbon copy of countless other bands riding this latest wave of extreme emo and the keys may be good but they aren't enough to salvage the entire project. It seems to boil down to the quality of songwriting. S.O.Z. need to take it up a notch. For this kind of music to work it has to be very complex, yet interesting. Extremely heavy, yet accessible. Have lots of variation, yet pummel the listener. This style of music by its very nature is enigmatic and certainly must be difficult to master (in other words this ain't your mamma's three-chord punk rock) so I hesitate to play the prick music critic who complains about something I certainly couldn't ever do but the fact of the matter is "The Birth Of Tragedy" is boring.
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