I spent a good few minutes considering what to pick from the genre list provided by this website. You see, it's rather hard to define the music that Subtle produce. 'Genreless' gets floated around a lot. Others tend to mention 'experimental', 'indie' and 'hip-hop'. It's not easy. So let's try and avoid any pigeonholing and move straight onto the music in question.
Adam 'Dose One' Drucker's interestingly nasal vocal delivery hints at an overconsumption of helium gas before picking up the microphone. It's an acquired taste, but not unpleasant. The vocals in 'Day Dangerous' ride along on the crest of a pulsing drone that swirls into being, like particles being drawn together to form a whole. The insistant riff (if you can call it that) emerges from waves of noise to create an ambient collage of vocal harmonies, stuttered refrains and minimalist drum-machine beats. It doesn't sound too much on paper, but it is beautifully hypnotic.
'The No' is a far more aggressive, far nastier piece of work. A throbbing baseline (dig those subwoofers out) and jagged chords dominate, while a hyper-speed stream of what must be lyrics spills forth. To be honest, I failed quite spectacularly to make out ninety-nine percent of the lyrics in 'ExitingARM', let alone understand the lyrical content of each song. Having read up on the lyrics for 'The No', it is apparent that they're pretty biting ("a skeptic can be grown best from the torn-in-two torso of a dead politician/somehow so perfect for the un-science and precisions of skeptic making"). Reading the lyrics didn't always help however; it appears that in some cases, the words were chosen for their rhythm and timbre, rather than meaning.
'Hollow Hollered' leads with a far gentler vibe, bringing in soulful vocals, laid-back drums and a more relaxed vocal delivery. It even features a soft acoustic guitar refrain, with layered, ethereal vocals sliding in and out fo the mix, but this fades out, accompanied by a chugging stream of electronic blips and bleeps. 'The Crow' is probably the closest that 'ExitingARM' comes to an ambient mood-piece, Air-esque in its delivery, although with lyrics such as "And so, so shall the crow/Cuts its throat's most awful cough/From its heavy metal song", it's hardly standard lounge music.
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'Gonebones' is another pulsing oddity, its war dance rhythms fusing with almost Balkan-like horn parping, intershot with manic bursts of laughter peppering the listener like a semi-automatic rifle. Breathless ratatat lyrics are unleashed, incomprehensible and sudden, before the song dies out unexpectedly. 'Wanted Found' deserves a mention just for its eerie denouement, a backstreet breakdown of guitar, flute and lingering minor chords that is all too quickly drowned out by thumping drums.
It's been hard to review this one. It's an album that almost cries out to be listened to as a whole. The chaotic, dense nature of the songs means that if you're looking for immediacy and hummable tunes, this certainly isn't the album for you. If you're looking for something a little bit challenging, exciting and unusual, give this a whirl. You might like it. An aggressive mess of distortion, blips and rapid-fire, barely-discernable vocals it may be, but there is beauty in there.
www.subtle6.com
www.lexrecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/subtlesix
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