[reviews] afe122cd
scum from the sun: scum from the sun

If, due to financial or other reasons, you can only afford to release your music in the form of a professionally duplicated CD-R, it helps to compensate with creative packaging. (Half-decent music also helps, but that's a prerequisite, not a fancy optional extra.) This is a case in point, arriving in a circular tin case, with a tiny slip of cardboard with the song title sufficing as a booklet and inlay.

Most of the four songs follow a similar motif of a repetitive guitar line, with soaring synths and extremely rudimentary percussion forming the backdrop, and dripping with atmosphere. This is pretty impressive in the first song, with its repetitive ascendancy easily being the album's highlight.

The outsider is a weak space ambient track that captures none of the tension generated by the others, and together with the second track, divides the album into two halves, with the weak sandwiched by the strong. Scum From the Sun is annoyingly inconsistent and thus not something I can wholeheartedly recommend. Caveat emptor is particularly apt here; I would strongly recommend a listen before purchase. Or buy it anyway - it will add variety in a number of ways to any CD collection. (8/10)

[Quentin Kalis]