AMPLIFIER

I'd like to begin this review with two aphorisms. The first is a well-known proverb: "Started with a prayer, ended with a funeral." The second phrase belongs to russia's unforgettable Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin, who on August 6, 1993 uttered the short formulation that made his name famous: "We wanted the best, but it turned out as always." Both of these phrases fit the second album by AMPLIFIER, titled "Insider," remarkably well. The album's genre is listed everywhere as alternative rock for simplicity's sake. In reality, we hear original-sounding post-rock with elements of progressive, psychedelia, and even indie. This sound cannot be described — the album must be heard. But there's the catch: it's quite enough to hear any one song, two at most, to fully understand what the disc is about. Unfortunately, this Manchester trio produced an impossibly monotonous piece of work. The first two compositions make a brilliant impression — very beautiful, unusual, and atmospheric. However, if there weren't enough ideas for the entire disc, they could have released an EP, which would have been priceless, but instead they released a full album. After 40 minutes it becomes terribly boring, and by the time it's ending (one hour minus one minute), you can't wait for it to be over. All the ideas and experiments on the album find their expression within the first ten minutes; everything afterward is variations on a theme. The musicians overdid it and dragged things out — a shame, since the material we hear at the beginning of the record is very, very solid.