Autraumaton |Synthetic Entertainment, 2009| 
1. All the Same, 2. Harder to be True, 3. Selfish Nature, 4. The Strings Inside, 5. Faith in Yesterday, 6. Collapse, 7. Distant Blue Skies, 8. My Love, My Blood, 9. Tell Me Lies, 10. Evidence of the Fall
The Rabid Whole has been an apple of the eye of Denyss McKnight and Mark Sommer, who run their A & R label
Synthetic Entertainment besides of their activity in
Left Spine Down.
The band comes from Canada and there are four young musicians in the line-up: Andreas Weiss, Lead Vox/Guitar; Sheenah Ko - Keys/Backup Vox; George Radutu - Guitar/Backup Vox; James McKenzie – Percussion/Keys/Programming/Visuals. They have been active around the scene since 2007 when they met as strangers in Saskatchewan.
The Rabid Whole music is two-faced to me. The one shows sort of pop songs based on electronic-rock motives, the other speaks for very high quality mastering and production of the songs with still rock spirit. However I can't get rid of a feeling the sound of several songs comes from some fascination with new music of Nine Inch Nails accented mostly in moments where guitars and vocals meet up together with a similar emotional tone in a song.
Considering 'sweetness' of the songs like 'The Strings Inside' and 'Evidence of the Fall' I found Collide the closest association to. Combativeness of a song 'Tell Me Lies' reminds me a bit of Stabbing Westward tune.
Above influences are very right but except of them there's a whole lot of hard work of both musicians and sound engineers, as mentioned before the sound quality is very good.
The album was produced by Karl Schubach & Andreas Weiss, and mastering came from hands of Shaun Thingvold.
My attention was drown by a kiler song 'Selfish Nature' – vibrated, excellent for dancing, still with guitars and a catchy refrain, simple rhythm and stunning dynamics. An excellent electronic-rock follower of the most dancable songs by Miami Sound Machine!
The final chord doesn't sound perfect though as if the musicians weren't quite convinced what should end the song. Seems like intro and outro are problematic places for most of musicians.
'Collapse' it's a hit with its simple but catchy refrain and dancable rhythm, additionally spiced up with a tone of the vocalist's voice who can sing both tempting and edgy.
The help of Synthetic Entertainment is an indubitable asset when a band rather can't count on the labels so production of albums is based on their own home budget. In that case this project gets a very good promotion so seems sure that after the CD release it'll be a beautiful future drawn for the band especially in a matter of touring.
It's gets comfortable while listening to Autraumaton however it has its aggressive moments. The songs vary as for atmospheres but all of the tracks are very well composed and released. Actually 80% of the songs could be played on MTV in the 80s, released on European-American-Japanese singles in the 90s, but nowadays they can get every form of promotion with a constant improvement of technology and easier bands management.
However the Rabid Whole isn't so lonely on the music market as there a few bands that kind to mention Mephistosystem (Switzerland) with the same level of high quality production and management. 3 stars for combativeness, ideas integrity and HQ production.
(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below)
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