Unknown Component - In Direct Communication (Unknown Component)
UK release date: 15 September 2008
track listing
1. Into The Sun
2. It's A Fine Line
3. Retrospectively Speaking
4. Between Guilt And Relief
5. Somewhere A Light Has Gone Out
6. On Your Mind
7. Identifying Interpretation
8. Brought Up To Be Put Down
9. Never Ceases To Remain Unchanged
10. The Inconsistent System
Collapsing in a pile of your own vomit, hanging from the ceiling by your testicles, squeezing your head in a vice while The Man forces himself upon you - all such horrors are preferable to listening to Unknown Component (aka Keith Lynch), who propels himself with an admirable fervency into contention for the worst artist I've ever heard.
It's more than evident that something's awry from the opening seconds of Into The Sun. The guitars sound awful, the drums sound like they've been programmed by a twat, or if they're real (which I hope to God they're not), recorded and mixed by a twat. Atop this faecal pie, Unknown Component liberally splatter the vocals of Keith Lynch.
Nasal, whiney, elongated and atonal - he frankly cannot sing. When Lynch goes for the high note in Identifying Interpretation (what does that mean?) my middle ear cowers in the corner of the recesses of my brain with sheer, heart-stopping terror. His vocal 'work' throughout the album is painful.
Unknown Component manage to dig even deeper into the shit-pit (and indeed strike water) with their piano led songs - the couplet of the arpeggiated discord of Somewhere A Light Has Gone Out (yeah, right), and On Your Mind makes me actually want to die.
As a guitarist, Lynch is ok. Or he would be if his guitar was in tune. And if he had some semblance of depth or variation in his sound. I take it dynamics are out of the question? Thought so.
Perhaps what is most bothering about this album is the very fact that it's been released - you don't just release albums without some support and encouragement from somewhere. The press release for In Direct Communication is littered with media praise, one quote even comparing Unknown Component to Elliott Smith and Radiohead. Is this a joke?
In Direct Communication gets half a star because the chorus of It's A Fine Line and the guitar and bass intermingling intro riffs of Retrospectively Speaking just about manage to not make me want to do sick all over myself, and because I think this release is not all Lynch's fault - why hasn't anyone told the poor bastard that his music's shit?
Tikka-tinged slayer of ambition, Simon Cowell, recently commented on the difference between being confident, and being deluded. Unknown Component most definitely belongs to the latter, In Direct Communication a, quite literally, offensive record.
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