Acrid | ‘Caveman’

Now this is intriguing. Taking time off from his day job in Ego Sum Papa, one Eoin Callery has put together a lengthy and varied demo of purely instrumental keyboard and synthesiser sketches, showing an impressive degree of both compositional skill and an awareness of mood that belies the basic presentation. It’s quite difficult to give an accurate overview of what this actually is, in musical or comparitive terms.

I could be wrong, but the impression I get is that each of these six tracks is showcasing a different mood or agenda that Callery is trying to nail. As such, we have a busy and layered five minute ode to Jon Lord on the classic Hammond crossed with “Pulstar” period Vangelis (track 1), while later on being treated to a much more spacious and etheral piece (track 4), darker in nature than the rest. The third composition strikes me as the best: being a lonely and crestfallen moodpiece, it really does have that filmic touch (I detest that cliché, but it is genuinely appropriate here) and displays a delicacy that is quite surprising. It is more reflective of my own tastes that I dont really have much interest in the ‘busier’ pieces, which by default seem to end up with a happier tonality. Although mercifully they never end up in Sherninan or Euro synth territory, there is still that abiding positivity to them, and thats just not my thing. But the one or two tracks herein where Callery tackles the darker, slower and more atmospheric end of his challenges are by far the most rewarding. There is international potential here no matter which of his preferences he chooses, and a select few metallers with sound extra curriculer tastes will find some of this very appealing.

-Ciaran Tracey ::: 16/08/04