Daedelus - Denies The Day's Demise

Rating: 5 out of 5
Reviewer: Neil

Daedelus is a well-respected, but far from famous, experimental musician. His music is both romantic and harsh. He takes sounds from the past and from the future, mixing Disney-esque orchestra passages, video game sound effects, dance hall synth, latino percussion, haunting vocals, electronica, and other indescribable sounds together to create music unlike anything else. His albums so far have had many enjoyable nuggets of sound and music, but often lacked a concept so that they sounded like disconnected collections of experimentation.

Denies The Day's Demise is his first album with a consistent, cohesive sound from start to finish. This album is a single work, a single vision. The music is thrilling, fun, and moving without missing a step. Make no mistake, he hasn't sacrificed experimentation for the sake of making music. But this album shows that Daedelus is better able to identify which sounds work musically to get his theme across and has discarded others.

Denies The Day's Demise is made up of songs that evoke images of chases, exploration, romance, sci-fi landscapes, alien cantinas, melee combat, rebellion, redemption, and violent tantrums.

The prologue to the adventure is "At My Heels", music for a fast-paced chase with sweeping epic orchestra riffs, crashing percussion explosions, and James Bond guitar. Then night falls in the second track, "Sundown", which tells us to celebrate the end of the day rather than mourn its end. This track has a live sound that I have not heard from Daedelus before. The loud synthesizer would fill a concert hall nicely.

"Nouveau Nova" is one of my favorite tracks, stirring my imagination with all kinds of wondrous images. It starts off with a fast synthesizer attack, followed by much more gentle exchanges between synth and piano with minimal melodies. This is the escape sequence, which is followed by a relaxing respite from the pressures of the day in "Viva Vida". Bass clarinet, clarinet-synth sounds and guitar ease the listener into the night, while Daedelus repeats the mantra "Live your life, your tired life of strife" which is sometimes overlapped with "Save your life."

The day was hectic ("At My Heels"), but the album now becomes much more ethereal. I could describe each track in detail, as each of them is unique and evocative, but that would ruin the fun of exploring the music for yourself. Give Denies The Day's Demise many listens to let the music and imagery sink in. One of my favorite tracks is "Lights Out", which sounds like music for a martial arts battle with a two year old ninja. Orchestra samples and a driving bass make you want to start punching, kicking, and dancing all at the same time, the way ninjas must dance at the ninja disco.

The music is often other-worldly. Tracks like "Bahia" are very Star Wars cantina, but more alien, and Cuban at the same time. "Our Last Stand" is how dance music sounds like when you are totally drunk at a club and have trouble distinguishing notes and beats.

The end of the album becomes mournful with the gorgeous songs "Sunrise" and "Never None The Wiser". These songs say that the end of night is what should be mourned. Those who slept through it have no idea what they missed, much like those who will never hear Daedelus' surreal landscapes of sound.