Shelter From the Ash

by

Six Organs of Admittance

Edit

After giving this about 5 listens, Six Organs of Admittance' 10th album, Shelter From The Ash, is just very dissapointed compared to previous albums. I understand that an artist needs to grow and evolve their sound through the years, but this just sounds rushed, with very little new or interesting ideas. It seriously sounds as if Ben Chasny took the best elements of his earlier albums and compressed them to make them sound "pleasable" or "accesiable." Six Organs is not really an accessible band, so why bother?

With his last release, The Sun Awakens, Ben Chasny painted a multi-colored masterpiece, full of strange melodies and Eastern-influenced instruments, such as a tone generator and persian ney. On this album, it's just back to guitar and drums. Why the regression? And the production is very muddy. It sounds like the 8-track recordings Ben used to make.

There are some good songs on this though. Goddess Atonement has a very powerful melody throughout, and I really dig the searing guitar solo on Strangled Road. But some of the tracks just sound uninspired. The 'hit' on the album, Shelter From The Ash, sounded like an interesting song until the atonal messy guitar solo came in and turned the song into a disaster. Also, Coming To Get You takes so long to climax, you already know what's going to happen. And there are a few acoustic guitar solos throughout that just don't do anything. Yes, Ben, we understand that you're a terrific guitar player. Get on with it.

It's not all bad though. In fact, in all of the songs, there are some pleasant passages and great lyrics that save this album from being a 2. It's still Six Organs Of Admittance, and there really isn't any other music act that can pull this style off successfully.

All in all, though, diehard fans should love this. I don't think it's worth the price though. A bit dissapointing.