The first album is difficult no matter what level you’re at, sometimes you get it right and sometimes it is just a learning curve.
From what I understand, the artist DRIFT didn’t want the album to be full of singles, and wanted the project to feel like it was ‘weaving together as a whole.’ Now that sounds great, all for it, but what we get is very lacklustre. The majority of the tracks on the album seem to blend into a strange, cluttered and repetitive whole. These tracks are indistinguishable, evoking no response on an emotional level and even less in terms of enjoyment.
The only real track with a pulse that I enjoyed was ‘Raytheons Raider’, this electro-synth track buzzes along with (slightly) more enlivened vocals and stands out from the rest of the album. The only other track that stands out is ‘Human’, which gradually builds with droning synths and sampled voices but fizzles out into nothing.
Now I guess you could call it an experience, not an exciting one or anything, more like waiting in a dentists waiting room or taking up stamp collecting. Her previous 2017 EP ‘Genderland’ does have more energy to it and I was impressed with some of the tracks there, mainly because of the personality that it has compared to this album. The tracks on ‘Symbiosis’ feel reasonably cohesive, but with strange flourishes across them, it is quite hard to get invested or pick one that stands out from the pack.
As you can tell by now I am not a fan of this album, except for the track that I mentioned earlier this album for me doesn’t have enough emotion in it. For a project like this to work, you need to have vocals or instrumentation that forms together to make something that evokes an emotional response. While technically competent, this album feels hollow emotionally.
While I am not thrilled about this project I hope all the best for DRIFT in the future, she needs to bring back the energy of her earlier work, which is where her real strength lies.
Drift: Symbiosis – Out Now (Tapete Records)
