Italy is style central and noise bands are style free so that, of itself, makes Italian band Sixth Minor a potential conundrum and their album “Amygdalae” something likely to arouse curiosity.
And curiosity – the very thing that killed the cat, as I recall – is indeed the consequence of heavily amplified exposure to the extended extemporisations that comprise this album. On reflection, naming the songs after parts of the brain does provide something of a clue as to the intentions of Sixth Minor (aka Renato Longobardi, Andrea Gallo and Francesco Guiliano) with a meditation on the deeper, darker purposes that lie within us all becoming an evident motivation as the album progresses towards the astral plane.
There is a common theme, fusion powered by the insistent beat and anguished analogue synth sounds, to join the dots and bring order to the manic episode that so righteously follows understanding and even the dancefloor that is so often the haunt of the devil finds itself in scope with “Thalamus” temporarily lightening the tone via the mechanism of robotic quasi-female vocals.
The question, however, is whether all this intellectual posturing results in an emotional response. The answer to that is yes and “Amygdalae” must therefore be judged a success. Do I truly understand it? Not yet. Do I like it? Oh yes!