Simon Railton - Here It Is CD (album) cover


Simon Railton


Eclectic Prog

1.08 | 10 ratings

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1 stars I'm angry like hell. I just wrote how bad this album is, and my browser crashed down and I've lost my review. But I'm going to say it again.

Kids discovering musical software for the first time will start doing some creations on their own if they feel so inclined. They might be doing it in a silence of their room, adding here, subtracting there, saving their files and playing them to their friends later. It's fine. It's a process of learning something through a game. Of course, those record pieces may not be the best music around, but it's a place to start.

This album sounds exactly like that - like someone released some pile of sounds and call it an album. Needless to say, the sounds are nothing short of awful: plastic, thin, mechanical, cheap General MIDI bass, drums, synth sounds. There are also one or two real instruments plugged in; electric guitar and a keyboard doing the task of piano. It's hissing all the time while being played, when there's no piano the hiss level is lower. Guitar sounds cheap and thin.

There's many cheap computer-generated music around, even within the scope of this web site. Even progressive music. It vary from ultra-cheap software generated sounds to something more sophisticated. This one takes the cake. The production is beyond any decency.

It wouldn't be such an colossal issue if the actual music in question is somewhat worthy. But even in songwriting area, this one remains a messy pile of sounds. There are piano passages varying from new-agey to unimaginative pseudo-classical, the guitar is mostly soloing in metal style. But there is no flow, there is no dynamics, there's is no semblance of structure that every song deserves. It's not like the piano will play a passage and then guitar will gradually take the melody in the forefront and so on. It's all formulaic, and the formula applied is "throw in some mess on piano" and then "throw in some mess on guitar" and so on.

I'm aware everyone creating his own work could probably be delusional how his work is good while it's not. Everybody creates a piece, adding here, subtracting there, seeing it evolving.

But it's not even that. It sounds like someone pooped it out of a computer in one afternoon.

Everything could be forgiven and forgotten if this work was created by a 14-years old having fan on a computer for the first time. But according to the source (the label which released this album), the author is actually a musical teacher. I don't know what his students are learning, and I don't want to know.

You get my point: it's bad beyond description. There's not a single good thing about this I could say. Perhaps Railton will make some decent work in forthcoming years. But I must be nasty and say I don't think so.

This is someone's exercise accidentally recorded on a digital media. I can discover more musicality in looking at someone doing push-ups.

I just lost 10 minutes of my life writing this review. You will lose 5 minutes of your life reading it, but perhaps it prevents you from losing 40 minutes of it. Whatever you like or dislike, stay away from it. If you're curious like hell, stay away from it. And don't you dare to give money and actually buy it.

I feel dirty now, and sad, and empty. With bitter taste in my mouth.

clarke2001 | 1/5 |




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