Welcome to another Wednesday at UGF as our first year in operation begins to wind down! I wanted to take the opportunity to help promote an artist who I have a tremendous amount of respect for, Brzowski, and the newest album OneNationUnderDog by his band D-FAZ (check out their official website for more information here). While this was originally slated to drop on 9/18, I never did get an official announcement that it could be downloaded in full. The entire thing is up and available though and I figured maybe others who had preordered it were wondering what the deal was, or had forgotten about it and hadn't had a chance to peep it out. So I thought I'd offer my two cents on the album as well as draw some attention to it a bit after the fact as it seems it might have flown in under the radar...
The original D-FAZ EP, Abandoning (get a download of that one here) was an interesting listen. Brzowski is growing to be a very versatile poet and emcee, and with his experimentation ranging from straight up rap to metal with his other band Vinyl Cape (with C Money Burns) and fusions of the two, he's also definitely pretty fearless. D-FAZ goes in a new direction for him, blending an electronic bass music sound provided by four French production wizards with his angst ridden activist lyricism to create something engaging and new.
OneNationUnderGod tells the tale of a dystopian future, where an authoritarian surveillance state punishes free thought and incentivizes compliance. Brzowski's lyrical narrative mostly follows this story, with commentary about war, capitalism and activism, all firmly rooted in the real world as well as the world of D-FAZ's music. It's not an entirely novel concept especially in indie rap, but I have to give him points for his sincerity and energy in putting it all together (as well as his timeliness, although when in the last 50 years have messages like these been anything but timely?).
D-FAZ's instrumentalists are undoubtedly talented as well. While not being a huge fan of electronic music, I do find I enjoy the sounds they create. Their music provides a very apt landscape upon which to display the story line of the album. Bleak, eerie and anxious, a feeling of bad things coming to pass. Overall the sound is more electronic based than the EP, although there are definitely punk and metal elements to be discovered as well, and some especially noteworthy work from the percussionist. I found myself ultimately hearing a bit of the band Tool in their work on tracks like "One Nation". The songs often stretch to 5 minutes long with drum heavy breaks and knob twisting sound effects, and these musicians also have a chance to display their chops on a few instrumental tracks sprinkled here and there on the album. “Rosebud" was a beautiful example of this, although I actually felt that Brzowski could have written something amazing for it, which is unfortunate.
I did like this album a lot, however I still have to say that I prefer Brzowski's solo work or Vinyl Cape. It may just be opinion (I will always like the sounds of instruments or turntables more than the electronic stuff that seems to be huge these days), but I also felt in a few places that Brzowski's vocals didn't quite mesh with the instrumentals, and sometimes it seemed like the collaboration was a little bit forced. That's not a commentary on the skill of any parties involved, just a feeling I had that maybe the band could use some time together to work out a way to let everyone shine in every song. I recognize how difficult that probably can be in acts like this. I'm still excited to hear more from them, and I still highly recommend the album.
D-FAZ is, as stated on their website an attempt to "erase the division between I/We and the dreaded They/Them", so join Us and check it out today!
Don't be put off by the preorder flag still on the Bandcamp download, you can now purchase and download this album, in full, from the ever amazing Dora Dorovich right over here.
No comments:
Post a Comment