What hath Rage Against The Machine wrought? Ever since they
\nburst forth onto the scene, it seems like there has been a plethora
\nof bands hitting the scene who are merging spoken-word \/ rap with
\nthe power of alternative and metal.<\/p>\n
Then there’s the case of Orange 9mm, a band that ditches the
\npolitical leanings of their musical godparents and goes out in
\ntheir own mixture of spoken-word deliveries and well-crafted
\nalterna-metal. Their latest effort,
\nPretend I’m Human<\/i>, shows signs of greatness, but its
\nweakness lies not in its overuse of the style, but rather its
\nunderuse.<\/p>\n
The trio – vocalist Chaka Malik, guitarist\/bassist Taylor McLam
\nand drummer Matthew Cross – have just enough of an edge to their
\nplaying to grasp the fringes of metal, but they never push the
\ndistortion button over the edge to take away from the lyrics. (It
\nshould be noted that the band is augmented by keyboards and
\nprogramming from Neil Perry.) It’s not often that a fair balance
\nbetween the two sides is reached, and Orange 9mm know exactly how
\nto reach it.<\/p>\n
For the first half of
\nPretend I’m Human<\/i>, it seems like Orange 9mm can do little
\nwrong. While it takes more than one listen to truly appreciate
\nsongs like “When You Lie,” “Facelift” and the title track, the
\neffort quickly proves to be worth it, as everything seems to click
\nfor the band.<\/p>\n
The problem with
\nPretend I’m Human<\/i> comes when the band tries to move away
\nfrom structured music and into the realm of ambient spoken-word.
\nTracks like “Dragons (You Know I Love You)” and “Innocence” are
\nflat-out head scratchers. It is almost like you’re listening to
\nworks in progress – as if the band has the lyrics and delivery
\ndown, but they haven’t had the chance to write music around the
\nwords. Simply put, it doesn’t work.<\/p>\n
After such a spirit killer, tracks like “Alien” are hard-pressed
\nto bring
\nPretend I’m Human<\/i> back up to a level of power it once had,
\nand frankly, the obstacle is just a little more than they can
\novercome. Closing out the album with the short instrumental piece
\n“Day One” might not be the best way to end the experience, but I
\ncan almost understand why they did so.<\/p>\n
For all of the promise and excitement that Orange 9mm built up
\nwith the first half of
\nPretend I’m Human<\/i>, I can only wonder why they chose to drop
\nthe structured melodies for a good chunk of the second half. After
\nall, you don’t send the mosh pit into a frenzy by whipping out the
\nacoustic guitar mid-set.<\/p>\n
Orange 9mm has potential, but
\nPretend I’m Human<\/i> makes the mistake of leaving some concepts
\nunderdeveloped. Maybe next time, guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7486],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-39183","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-orange-9mm","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39183","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=39183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39183"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}