Artist: Conxious
Label: Self-released
Release: 2005
Conxious are Austrian youngsters who are true scientists of composing outrageously unlistenable creations. Specialists in torturing the mechanoreceptors. In all my years of reviewing records, I’ve never come across an album this unlistenable, one where every element of the music is bloodily brawling with the others over who gets thrown out of the boxing ring first. Conxious are a textbook case of a band made up of trained musicians who fund everything themselves, organize their own gigs, and have a guitarist shredding on skateboards with his own signature… in short, the lads clearly have no budget problems. Quite confidently, they’re also trying to squeeze out something special, something different, something seriously avant-garde.
But since it’s not all about money and music degrees, the result is unique this time too. I can sum it up simply: the guys don’t know what they want. The music is a mix of riffs alternating with single-note string twittering whenever the guitarist feels he’s been riffing for too long! So, illogical experimental cutoffs all over the album’s runtime, trying to glue the motifs together in a totally dysfunctional way, which results in boundless fragmentation of the music that has neither head nor tail. A riff kicks in, then comes an illogical pause that kills the dynamics and the melodic energy flow, then out of nowhere some kind of “a cappella” singing takes over, the next moment the riff erupts again, a bit further on it all turns into doom-style semitone wailing, followed by a guitar solo that doesn’t fit in anywhere. Horrifyingly disjointed.
The vocals are trained and melodic, clean, and they remain completely wasted. With such excessively experimental motif-mashing of guitar and rhythm section, they even come across as being in the way. In the search for a melody within the melody, they’re completely neutered and smothered. There’s potential there, but it’s totally lost in such obscure twists of all-out experimentation. The guys also lean heavily on clean to semi-acoustic sounds. On top of the infamous lack of motivic cohesion, the cherry on top is a free-spirited “free form” mania of rhythm switching, which is supposed to season the whole thing with progressive flavor to the extreme. So yes! It’s progressive, and you could also call it alternative, but this time put together with the typical intent of making the listener’s eardrums burst.
Walking through the songs one by one is unnecessary here, but just for a quick taste: the craziest experiment of the geniuses in Conxious, whose genius is understandable only to themselves, is definitely woven together in the track Neurotic Nightmare, where a metal riff rides along some kind of Latin bossa nova rhythm. This record is a total fiasco, a musical abortion, and I just wish the band would someday agree on how to express themselves musically, set a goal, and follow it. Then maybe the rating of their albums will be different too. This album can serve as a textbook example for every band, a guide on how an album must never sound! Unless you’re aiming for nobody listening to your music.
Lineup
Albert Leibel – vocals
Alexander Ghezzo – guitar
Victor Gabriel – bass
Michael Ghezzo – drums
Production
Kristian Ignatov
Tracklist
1. Do You Feel Free Now (4:26)
2. Never before / Never Again (4:58)
3. Neurotic Nightmare (4:26)
4. Pity You (5:27)
5. Wedding Day (4:33)
6. Nothing Of More Importance (4:26)
7. If It Wasn’t (6:03)
8. The Finest (4:15)
9. The Worst Is Over Yet (4:26)
10. I Want You*
*…bonus track (acoustic version)
Album length: 47.04
