Style: Synthwave
Primary Emotions/Themes: Synthwave by the numbers
Thoughts: I've been through a lot of genres in my musical journey. At one point I was super into synthwave/outrun and I accumulated a lot of records in that style. As time went on I found myself listening to it less and less and I eventually started selling off some records. At this point I have a few left and they are the ones that represent everything I like in the style the best. Kalax's III is one of the ones that made the cut.
While I have not heard the greatest reports about Kalax as a person, the music that he creates is on the elite end of the synthwave spectrum. It doesn't cover any new ground, it does not innovate... despite this it manages to soar well above the average synthwave album.
What's the difference then? Why do I like this one so much over the dozens of other generic synthwave albums? To put it quite simply: the man is so good at what he does that it's impossible to ignore.
Sometimes its the pacing of the album. He will put a near ambient track to lure the listener into a false sense of security, only to blow me out of the water with the very next notes. Vocal tracks are interspersed throughout the album, breaking up any perceived monotony of the instrumental tracks.
The pace of the songs is also a key element here. There are essentially three speeds that this album operates on: slow/ambient, mid tempo, and driving down the highway at lightning fast speeds. The album never focuses on one tempo for too long, instead choosing to divvy up the respective styles into bite size morsels for the listener to digest. It makes for brilliant pacing.
III is a long album, yet it doesn't feel like it. Even at over an hour long I still want more... that in itself is a rarity. That plus all the myriad of reasons laid out before is the start of why I like this album so much. On top of everything else, the album has the "it" factor... it's just good. Damn good.
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