I know I am getting old, but I really felt it when I was trying to remember the first time I heard Animals and failed. It isn't that the new Specimen 37 will remind you musically of the Pink Floyd classic, but stylistically you can feel the similarities. The Endless Looping Game was written as a theatrical piece meant to chronicle a week in the subject's life trying to make sense of the world we live in. This isn't so much a story as a sonic imprint of this quest.
Many of the songs on The Endless Looping Game have a Talking Heads meets Thomas Dolby impression. There are pop sensibilities hidden behind many of the tracks, but the edgy snippets that interlace the album keep you on your toes and aware that this is not an ordinary CD. Specimen 37 does an excellent job of changing their sound and styles. The CD progresses nicely from the avant-garde "What Is Life?" through the piano driven "Logging On" and through the most progressive track "The Endless Looping Game." The album then ends with the silly, but aptly placed "Randy and the Gogzies".
My favorite track is the Bass driven tune "Thursday Morning Jogger". Specimen 37 do a good job of blending the noise tracks and ambient snippets with the powerful guitar playing of Empathy and the hypnotic bass playing of Sketch Element. This song does the best job of capturing the entire feel that the band is going for.
Specimen 37 often are compared to Pink Floyd. Heck, I even did it in my first paragraph. But musically, this is more like if Scott Miller of Loud Family started using crunching guitars and progressive drumming. If you are a fan of experimental song writing, you can not go wrong with The Endless Looping Game. You have to give Specimen 37 an A for effort.
Track Listing
1) Awake with a Shock (2:06)
2) What is Life? (6:05)
3) Monday (7:05)
4) Blow Things Up! (5:44)
5) Logging On (9:00)
6) Downcast (4:55)
7) Thursday Morning Jogger (8:11)
8) Helix (4:02)
9) Twilight (6:43)
10) The Endless Looping Game (6:50)
11) Randy and the Gogzies (7:37)
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