The US Electric keeps itself from coming out of the underground with its fifth album, 'Elevation'. The US Electric is a band consisting of two people, Colby Parson's and Susan Morse, who are also known by their stage names Asha Blue and Bonn Durand. The group has released 4 other albums, 'Recovery', 'Alarm', 'Threshold', and 'Program' which was an EP. The US Electric is virtually unknown, with the only information to be found about them on their own website that is bare to say the least. “Electronic and psychedelic,” the band proclaims on their website regarding their genre choice.
The US Electric has the sound of a more electronic Eiffel 65. More like an electronic band with hints of Eiffel 65 in it. The best description of this music is something that you might hear in a high end boutique. You walk in and the place is selling overpriced stuff with lots of cold steel and futuristic design about the place. This album has a lot of simple, loud, bass beats, low vocals (with vocal processors), and at times, a hint of melodic under beats.
As soon as you start listening to this album, you're struck with the protruding bass lines. The bass takes over the songs with a hypnotic structure that draws you in and focuses you on that. Techno/electronic hits are largely based on bass lines, which is good for this band. Along with the bass comes a futuristic sound and feel to the Music. The band tries to transport you off to a far off planet that has technology light years ahead of our own.
Unfortunately, that planet's musical taste is differing from our own. Take for instance the bass lines we just talked about. While hypnotic, they are also overwhelming. So overwhelming in fact, it's hard to focus on anything else. The bass is simple, and with the general lack of melody and vocals, all you're listening to is this really boring beat. The only thing I would recommend this beat for would be the marching of robots. If you picture a legion of robots marching, anyone of the songs on 'Elevation' fits it almost perfectly.
The reason their beats are boring is because, unlike other electronic music, there is no structure, it's not going anywhere. Normally there are back beats, drops, rhythm, or sections with anything different. The music in this album is just so fundamentally simple that it seems like the downloaded some software off the internet and screwed around with it until they got frustrated and said, “good enough.”
The two biggest flaws with this entire album is that there is no discernible rhythm, and the vocals are too low. With rhythm, the the only times you can hear rhythm, it's not even really rhythm, it's more like a solo. The rhythm doesn't repeat, or stay similar, it just goes off on different tangents that you can't follow. The vocals are pretty much indiscernible in the songs that actually have them. If you can hear them, they make absolutely no sense. Take for instance, the song Traum Muster, it's just someone playing the same beat repeatedly on a bongo type instrument with creepy music floating around, and a lady talking about one of her weird dreams. Literally just talking. The song gets over and you're like, “That's it?” The whole song sounds like an intro to a song, and you keep waiting for the beat to drop. But it never does. THE BEAT NEVER COMES!!! in all but a few songs, the vocals are just drowned out by the beat.
All and all, this band, this album, was a waste of time. The reason The US Electric is self produced is because you'd have to be slightly deft to sign them. This is really harsh, but it's because I’m pretty sure listening to this album for so long is starting to drive me insane. The best music I’ve heard from this band is not on this album. I'm sure that if you're one of their hardcore underground following, you think I’m crazy. But, the reason their following is underground is because all the people above ground think this music isn't good. Like I said earlier, if you own a high end boutique and you need some background music then this may be your answer, if you aren't however, I suggest spending your valuable time searching for music elsewhere.
Best song: Asha Blue
Worst song: Tie between, Traum Muster and LMFAO
Ranking: 2 out of 10
Meaning: “I've heard worse, but I'll never listen to this again.”
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