Album Review : Thought Forms – Thought Forms
- Written by Rob Barker
It’s not often that I get sent instrumental albums, generally the albums that turn up in my inbox feature a fairly good band, with the singer being so bad that his voice opens up a vortex into a horrifying place, ruled by the ugly ginger one from Girls Aloud, and where the national anthem is written by Neil Diamond, or worse, Cliff Richard.
Fortunately for me, and for anyone that listens to the debut album from Thought Forms, there are no vocals, hence no vortex and no nightmare world of crooning and that girl’s terrible face. What you do get is a collection of tight, guitar driven tracks, ranging from daydream inducing ambient soundscapes to '90s style grungey alternative tracks, oozing with feedback and fuzzy distortion.
Unfortunately, there is a downside to the lack of vocals. Vocals often hold a track together and give it a feeling of actually going somewhere, but on Thought Forms (the album) the tracks just rumble along and often feel like loops, or at best, inventive jams. The album lacks structure and it’s a shame, because the playing is, at times, verging on the excellent. Take ‘Mr Steve Has Eaten Your Dog’, it’s a masterclass in distorted tones and raygun effects, but it just repeats the same lines over and over again, making it feel more like a section from a soundtrack, rather than an album track.
This occurs throughout the album, with each track never peaking or progressing, but just repeating the same part incessantly, and while it makes for good background noise, it hardly makes for interesting listening.
So, if you want something just making noise so you don’t have to sit in silence, pop on this album from Thought Forms; if you actually want to listen to some exciting music, look elsewhere.