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If one believes there’s such a genre as art rock, then surely there is something along the lines of art metal. I recently came across another metal band from France that would fit such a preposterous description. Klone is a peculiar mixture of mainstream rock, hard rock, death metal, experimental rock, jazz, and crazy. Whomever runs their MySpace page must have found me since I friended Demians given that they found me shortly after finding Demians and they’re both from France. Although Klone does have a few moments when the two bands could be easily compared, that’s about the extent of the connection between the two bands.
I’ll be honest. I was a little disappointed with my purchase of All Seeing Eye (2008)… at first. But a) I didn’t give it a full listen nor b) my full attention. At times this band can seem like another one of those off-the-wall thrash metal bands with no real focus in mind. But a couple weeks ago, I decided to really give this album another shot. And today, I’ve listened to the album a total of three times so far… it has really grown on me. I can’t recommend this album to just anyone though. If you’re not into obscure artistic music, this whole album may not be for you. Sometimes the music is very experimental in terms of the mixture of instruments (or well synthesized instruments) into their metal foundation.
All Seeing Eye is a very diverse album, and if you simply check out their MySpace page by sampling small pieces of their music, you’d probably never anticipate what they have in store for you. The first track on their page is Last Breath. Be sure to listen to that song in entirety. The interlude has a taste of what I’ve been trying to say. The first three tracks are on All Seeing Eye and are probably the most accessible tracks from the album. The vocals are representative of the album in general. Sometimes they’re pretty rough, but the words are always articulate enough to understand, so they’re not quite as death-metal-absurd as Opeth. On the other hand, sometimes the vocals are rather melodic and along the lines of what you’d likely hear in the current American hard rock trend.
In general, this band is likely to attract those that love/enjoy/tolerate Opeth, Meshuggah, Gojira, Mudvayne, and the like. That said, I couldn’t fairly compare any of those bands wholly to Klone. Just that they all mildly fit in that sort of sub-genre of rock. It’s heavy, loud, fast, and will change the tempo and/or time signature out of nowhere… with some screaming on top here and there. What really separates Klone from these guys is their diversity. And I don’t mean just in terms of dynamics of mood/tone as Opeth exhibits so well, I mean stylistically. Furthermore, bands like Opeth don’t have a spectrum of diversity. Opeth is either death metal or really mellow acoustic rock. Klone actually hits much of the spectrum in between those two extremes. Also, for the record, Meshuggah and Gojira are still much heavier than Klone in my opinion. But like the aforementioned bands, the musicians in Klone are top notch. I even liked the bassist a lot… and I’m really picky with bassists since I happen to be pretty good on the bass myself.
If it feels like I’m trying hard to convince you Klone is good… it’s because they aren’t at all what my first impression indicated. I could easily see true music fans dismissing these guys without an honest effort. Furthermore, if you’re one of those people that think you shouldn’t ever have to try to like music… then you’re missing a myriad of phenomenal bands and you’ve given up on finding new music. That’s a sad thought. Don’t make me sad; don’t be that guy.
I should also mention that All Seeing Eye is only $5.99 on iTunes at 256 kbps and without DRM. That’s a steal, get it now.
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