Norwegian Lars Pedersen is some sort of musical wunderkind, apparently. He’s created music since the 1970s and has explored the corners of rock, pop, punk and psychedelica. ‘You Are Silent’ is When’s 12th album (!) over the 20 years the project has existed.
The album is in many ways worth a listen, but I have to say not necessarily a buy. Despite its dark expression, the whole thing goes everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and it is indeed a matter of temper if you can stand it.
There are five tracks here, the shortest just over three minutes long, the longest clocking up at just over twenty minutes.
The opener, Lost Cure, is promising. Picture some of the more dark stuff done by trip-hopper Tricky around the mid-nineties and you’re almost there. That’s cool, but nothing novel.
Second track, Stirred, takes a dirty, I’d even say fairly bad rock song and adds to that a semi-catchy pop refrain. I’m not impressed.
The Virus is an in my ears insufferable and plain boring distorted speech track with a messy musical background.
Strange Rituals takes us back to a time of psychedelic rock and is as such eventless apart from the dramatic violins at the very end.
The final epic track of twenty minutes and five seconds is, in lieu with the rest of the album, a mixed pleasure. Clocks, thunderous drums, shots, screams, bells, space sounds, then the distorted speech again and bad, noisy rock in the background. And the bad rock with the annoying keyboard whine continues as the voice thankfully is silenced.
In sum: a pointless waste of twenty minutes of valuable CD space.
All in all 35 points for making the effort of not being like everyone else – not for the music.
