ELECTRONICA, synth and classical training aren’t exactly what you’d call a natural collection of musical terms but a pair of American high school chums fused those influences to create Home Video in 1997.
Classically inclined David Gross and New Orleans schoolmate Collin Ruffino have again teamed up to create their 11 track second album ‘The Automatic Process’ in a self released, produced and penned effort.
Coming after a four year wait, this album is aimed at more of the critical acclaim that its predecessor ‘No Certain Night or Morning’ got in being compared to Radiohead’s legendary ‘Kid A’ album.
This collection is somewhat difficult to categorise however, as it continues on the same electro influenced theme as their debut and again carries no real get up and dance element.
Instead it’s an atmospheric and quite arty outlook on the genre that is more to be listened to in admiration than to be raved to in a converted warehouse.
‘Smoke’ is a perfect example of this and how the duo use cloudy synth, wailing strings and echoed vocals to create mesmeric imagery around a steady bass line and a high pitched sparkling background piano.
Ruffino is then backed by harmonic synth when he sings: “The smoke billowing.”
The album opener ‘Accomplished But Dead’ also shares this textured almost visual aspect with wailing chords, eerie layered vocals and a recurring deep guitar strum that adds further drama to the track.
One standout and to a degree standalone track is ‘Beatrice’. This reflective love song has an acoustic guitar core backed by heavenly synth and floating percussion before an ‘In The Air Tonight’-style drum section introduces more dreamy instrumentation and a soft bass line.
Ruffino is irresistibly comparable to Thom Yorke’s yearning falsetto particularly in this heartfelt track when he sings: “I see her in my dreams.”
‘Every Love That Ever Was’ starts with a chilled out synth backing with tinkling piano excerpts before joining forces with a Meat Loaf-style piano rock chorus that is completely out of character for this album but it works. But that can’t be said for everything on this album.
Tracks like ‘No Relief’ and ‘I Can Make You Feel’, although different, do fall into the trap of becoming relentless and somewhat tiresome over five minutes, the former for its brash electro soundtrack and the latter for its uninspiring repetitive vocal.
But there’s such a wide range of influences on this album that other than being full of layers and texture, these tracks have no real consistency.
The piano laden ‘Business Transaction’, creepy interlude ‘Description of a Struggle’ and mix and match ‘You Will Know What To Do’, although having individual merits could all be from entirely different records.
In all this is a good follow up to ‘No Certain Night or Morning’ and continues in the same vein although some more forgettable tracks dampen its parade somewhat, there’s still plenty worth sitting back and taking in here.
7/10
Also published on www.virgin.com
http://www.virgin.com/music/reviews/the-automatic-process-out-on-home-video/
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