Score: 6/10
Concept albums are a cruel mistress. It seems such works can range from two extremes; the first being that the album has such a strong theme that the record can portray both the said theme and imagery, but also, still manage to create a personal connection with the listener. The second is quite simply, the opposite of this; nobody gets the theme and more importantly, nobody really cares about it anyway. The former includes releases such as David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and more recently Arcade Fire’s 2007 effort Neon Bible (yes, I class that as sort-of-conceptual, what with all the post-9/11 thoughts and all. Or as the NME would probably put it, "it’s about Churches ‘n’ shit"). Yet, more often than not, concept albums turn out to be the latter, which can be summed up as being either self-indulgent nonsense, or just a ridiculously surreal set of songs, such as The Carpenters’ stab at a sci-fi album, Passage. When reading the tale behind Almuadem’s conceptual piece, Nimrodel, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that 30 years later, bands such as Almuadem are still heading down that dark and inevitably dead-end road that Richard and Karen found themselves hurtling towards thanks to Passage. However, instead of indicating down this gloomy junction, Almuadem have only just begun. Having already coined the genre "hyper-sensibility" for their album, I’m going to suggest that the genre title means that the trio encompass the following: super-consciousness, super-sensitivity, and super-pretentiousness.
Apparently, Almuadem represent "the new art" and are "Citizens of a World to be created...". Which actually sound much more like a hyper-wankery thing to say. Although such statements may hinder enjoyment of the album, as the band are such control-freaks regarding the album that they’ve thought it best to pigeon-hole themselves before anyone else can, it’s best to skip over these details and focus all attention onto the record itself.
Concept-wise, the album depicts the life of Andy Perelman, a man who is braving life in a dying city, becoming increasingly annoyed by sexual deviants, and hooking up with "Princess," a figure that represents his yearning for love. Sadly, Andy is separated from her to realize a life of, well, this is where it all gets a bit strange... The denouement of Andy’s story is that he’s presented with "the laughter of his ego, reminding him of the time when he was happy, he becomes a genuine paradox when he puts on the mask of happiness." Not exactly The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, but once again, lets ignore the symbolism at play here and see if the record manages to portray any of the above. Surprisingly, Nimrodel isn’t bad.
Opener "In A Cold Chaos Place" is an interesting mesh of samples and synth, but the strange saxophone breakdown mid-track isn’t really appropriate and has the noxious essence of Duran Duran surrounding it. However, the trio do ditch the sax-appreciation early on and instead enter echoed beats into the mix, which leaves the listener much more satisfied than a saxophone ever could. Speaking of satisfaction, by which I obviously mean sexual, "Nymphomania" is an excellent example of how Almuadem can create spectacular compositions. Honestly, the eerie bells and violin that are employed throughout this track make the Requiem For A Dream soundtrack look weak. Unfortunately, the album does slip occasionally. "Blow Up" contains a cringe-worthy guitar solo, that no amount of backing synth can save. According to the group, this song represents "an ode to dizimation and humiliation." Frankly, whatever it’s meant to suggest, all I can hear is an annoying Guns N' Roses solo.
Aside from this inadvertent fall from conceptual grace, the rest of the album is filled with rather pleasant tracks. "Daisy" is a beautiful composition and perfectly captures the balance between conceptual piece versus personalized song. It’s debatable whether the high-pitched guitar hammering is actually necessary, but the Mice Parade influenced synth is enough to over-power any Axl Rose moments the band feel the urge to include.
Almuadem end our journey through Andy’s broken land with whale-noises, graceful Sigur Rós-esque piano, and a woman who’s clearly been breathing in mass amounts of helium laughing somewhere in the distance. All in all, Nimrodel is an expressive and emotive album, that, regardless of the concept, is an interesting listen.
-Holly Joy Emblem
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