Dubai based band Empty Yard Experiment (EYE) – Empty Yard Experiment – launched their album last Saturday, 15th March 2014. Read the review for the long awaited album below!
Kallisti is one of those albums that truly creates an all-around experience the listener is allowed to interact with. Apart from the music, the packaging, the concept and the design – all works together and contributes to really make a special piece. Personally speaking, I think the amount of work and thought that has gone into every detail of this album is tremendous, thus deserves to be reviewed explicitly.
The packaging of the album is unique and very different than what’s around. Not your traditional plastic case with a nicely printed paper and a small lyric booklet. The case is a black cardboard box with a wax seal. In there are loose sheets of paper with the lyrics to the songs. The print on the actual cd looks really cool, kept in colors of black and blue with some ‘scratches’ –if that’s the right word to use in this context- to give it visual depth. We can tell EYE really hasn’t forgotten a thing, even the font and the style of page numbering on the lyric sheets links to the holistic concept. The work is incredibly detailed, and for any art appreciative musician it’s a nice piece of eye candy (pun intended!) to be added to their music/art collection.
Now let’s get down to the real business. From a musical point of view speaking, the 14 track album has a lot to offer. There are 6/7 instrumental tracks. The album is structured in a way where 2 songs feed into each other. Between the approximately 6 minute long songs lies a 2 minute short segment, in most cases instrumental, that introduces the next song progressively. The crossover of musical styles in this album is very broad; it bridges between Tool, late Opeth, Katatonia, Porcupine Tree but also some alternative rock. It’s a fusion of different styles generating a great and very creative outcome. The music is very atmospheric, in particular instrumental tracks. As any artwork, the interpretation varies between individuals of the audience and cannot be summarized collectively. Some of the ideas extracted on a personal note though deal with the thought process of man, the social expectations and restrictions that form him and are rooted deeply into his subconscious; which in term cause a discomfort maybe even chaos in him.
Since the release of the track GHHR “God Has His Reasons” by the band on SoundCloud around 7 months ago, we’ve been really excited and looking forward to the album, and EYE has impressed us again with a great piece of work that we definitely recommend to true music lovers!
