Eclectic album inspires thoughts of, ‘WTF?’…

To be honest, when you’re faced with a name like Death Sentence: Panda! You’re already thinking, ‘OK, this is bound to be a bit odd’, but even that doesn’t really prepare you for what happens when you begin listening to ‘Insects Awaken’.

Headed by vocalist/flautist Kim West, DS:P! Are a San Franciscan trio whose music is apparently a mixture of traditional Korean folk music, free jazz and hardcore punk. Perhaps this reviewer has missed the point completely, but it just sounds utterly ridiculous half the time. It’s almost scientific fact that some feminist activist, pseudo intellectual drinking their soya latté out there will find ‘Insects Awaken’ a masterpiece in modern fusion, but seriously sometimes it feels like people try too hard to be creative and inspired and it just ends up sounds sound like, well, this.

There are fleeting glimpses of actual song writing on display here and there, for example ‘No Enemies’ is more relaxed than most of the songs and in turn ends up coming close to an actual song, that you can genuinely enjoy! That said, it still sounds like a bad LSD riddled trip from the 60’s.

However, these glimpses are all too often out-shadowed by collections of noises that just don’t make sense. Perhaps people listen to genres like Grindcore etc and think the same thing, but most of the time ‘Insects Awaken’ is pure nonsense, displayed perfectly on the song ‘Fangs’.

This band has received critical acclaim in the past, but it’s hard to imagine why unless the reviewer is trying to look at it from a different perspective, or is just on drugs themselves. To some this may be intriguing, as the album certainly is a psychedelic experience, but it will more than likely leave most hammering the eject button until your finger has turned into a stump.

Callum Galbraith