I have a rather bad habit when it comes to reviewing albums
\nfeaturing the talents of Jud Ehrbar – I tend to put them to the
\nside for far too long. When I do finally stumble across them in the
\nPierce Archives’ several “in” baskets, I slap the discs in the
\nplayer, then promptly kick myself hard for letting them go for as
\nlong as I have.<\/p>\n
I found myself drop-kicking my butt across the halls again when
\nI got around to listening to Ehrbar’s one-man project Reservoir.
\nPink Machine<\/i> features quite a bit of the pop found in
\nVarnaline, the other band Ehrbar is a member of, but is more
\nexperimental – and that makes this disc one interesting,
\nentertaining 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
Don’t let the almost two minutes of industrial noise to start
\noff “Go Back” scare you away from the disc – it almost had me
\npushing the “advance track” button. Good thing I didn’t, ’cause I
\nwould have missed an interesting amalgam of rhythms. Ehrbar’s
\nvocals and guitar work seems to be playing one melody, while the
\ndrums keep a slightly different, though crossing, beat. Normally
\nthis would result in an unlistenable cacophany, but Ehrbar pulls it
\noff amazingly well.<\/p>\n
Another amazing quality to Ehrbar is his vocals. Anders Parker
\nmay control the microphone with Varnaline, and does what he does
\nwell, but should he ever find himself fighting laryngitis, Ehrbar
\ncould easily fill in and make the transition seamless. “Let’s Fall
\nIn Love Again” shows off a set of pipes tuned for pop success, but
\nraised on the rough-and-tumble alternative world.<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly the greatest feature of
\nPink Machine<\/i> are the layers and layers of sonic excellence
\nthat make up the songs. “Air Coryell” is one example, with guitar,
\nkeyboards and drums all working overtime to create something
\nsimilar to Phil Spector’s legendary “Wall Of Sound” concept. Even
\nthe way the song fades out is unique, and should be listened to on
\nheadphones to appreciate it. First time I heard this track, I
\nthought I had partially unplugged the jack from the CD player.
\nOther tracks that stand out are “40,” the title track and “Weight
\nOf The World”.<\/p>\n
In fact, there is only one criticism that I could dare level
\nagainst
\nPink Machine<\/i>. Namely, it’s far too short; Ehrbar knows how
\nto craft songs that make 40 minutes seem like 40 seconds. The
\nexperimentation may occasionally confuse listeners used to a band
\nblowing its musical load in three minutes and leaving. I suggest
\nyou grab a beer, pull up a chair and stay awhile – it’s a journey
\nworth taking.<\/p>\n
\nPink Machine<\/i> is yet another example of a stellar release
\nthat may tend to be overlooked because it’s on a smaller label –
\nand is another album that screams for your attention, deserving
\nevery minute of it. Ehrbar may be a well-kept secret among music
\nfans, but if he keeps pumping out work like this, he won’t be a
\nsecret much longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5914],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-35861","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-reservoir","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35861"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35861"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}