According to James Pants, his new album Seven Seals is inspired by “being in the mood to start a cult. This is the cult's soundtrack.” It would be hard to think of a better description for the album. To concentrate on this music is to lose your ability to think as repetitious synth noise drowns you. While a certain amount of that sameness is required in electronic or groove music, at first listen this album plays like one track repeated 15 times with slightly different tempos. After a few spins though, you cannot help begin moving to the beats. With an eerie speed, it becomes comfortable (though never truly pleasant) to listen to Seven Seals over and over.
The first noticeable aspect of this album is its severe shortage of fun. Pants has said that he immersed himself in books on mysticism, the occult, and the book of Revelations. These are not topics that lend themselves to a happy-go-lucky sound. Yet for all its stone faced seriousness, the album avoids the pretentiousness that often accompanies this. Even lacking that pretentiousness, the forty minutes of this album still drag by like an eternity the first time around. The second time as well. Granted, this is sober listening we are taking about. The album would likely lend itself to an amazing experience while under the influence of heroic doses of hallucinogens. In fact, that just might be the experience intended by Mr. Pants. Sadly, this reviewer lacks the resources and willingness to convey that experience.
The second aspect that one notices about the album is its monotony. Mountains of it. The songs are alike to the point of being indistinguishable. That is not always an insurmountable problem; many albums play like one forty minute song and leave the listener happier for it. But Seven Seals is just not pleasurable to listen to. It sounds as though it wants to be paid attention to, but it has nothing to say. It is only on repeated playings that the music becomes catchy. It is hard to say what becomes appealing about it, but it attains a familiarity in the brain and just becomes an appropriate sound for the evening. It is this almost inexplicable catchiness that makes Pants' reference to cults slightly uncanny. It is all too easy to imagine this album as a soundtrack for a cult. But this thought just raises the perplexing question of why Pants would desire to create something like that.
Cults are generally only seen as positive institutions by their members. And just like cult members cut off from their leader, when the album stops playing you begin to wonder why you kept it on for so long. So it seems that Pants has accomplished his stated goal with this album. But that goal has created an album that is listenable only because it sneakily finagles its way into your cerebrum. It is hard to imagine most (not stoned) listeners giving this album the chance to make it that far.
The confounding nature of Seven Seals notwithstanding, James Pants does have talent. His odd style of DIY basement synth-laden electronica proved both fascinating and entertaining on his debut album, Welcome. Seven Seals seems too caught up in displaying that talent for its own sake rather than for the enjoyment of its audience.
Track List:
1. The Eyes Of The Lord (3:15)
2. A Chip In The Hand (2:54)
3. Beyond Time (1:46)
4. I Live Inside An Egg (2:15)
5. Wormhole (3:24)
6. Sky Warning (4:41)
7. Seven Seals Theme (1:14)
8. Thin Moon (2:56)
9. Not Me (2:26)
10. I Saw You (2:27)
11. Now, Let Me Brush You (2:32)
12. I Promise I Lied (2:51)
13. Wash To Sea (3:27)
14. Aqua Sun (2:09)
15. Oceans (0:50)
