Thomas Giles
Pulse
Rating
Style: Neo Prog
Release date: 31 January, 2011
Playing time: 44:57
 

"Pulse" is the solo debut album from Tommy Giles, aka Tommy Rogers lead vocalist, keyboard player and founding member of Between the Buried and Me. Multi-instrumentalist Tommy has not only arranged, composed and plays all the instruments on the album himself, he has also produced the album. So this is a one man effort to its fullest.

Thomas Giles takes us on a musical journey into well documented and tested waters; to be more precise somewhere between prog and art rock - well that wasn't precise in any way... And that's just the objective I have against this album; it is situated between two chairs with a big chance to fall between the cracks.

The songs are all well composed, crafted and produced, but the span or contrast if you will between the softer and atmospheric material to the more aggressive, cold and industrial material is in my humble opinion too huge. So this is an experience similar to when I put on a Devin Townsend album; I really appreciate the effort, the craftsmanship, the ideas behind it but I miss the thin red line tying things together, so I end up remembering bit and pieces but miss the big picture.

Finest moments: "Sleep Shake", "Hamilton Anxiety Scale", "Scared" and "Armchair Travel".


Tracklist
01. Sleep Shake (4:54)
02. Reverb Island (3:55)
03. Mr. Bird (4:24)
04. Catch & Release (3:25)
05. Hamilton Anxiety Scale (4:09)
06. Scared (2:35)
07. Reject Falicon (4:21)
08. Medic (2:48)
09. Suspend the Death Watch (5:14)
10. Armchair Travel (3:38)
11. Hypoxia (5:06)
Label: Metal Blade Records
Distribution: Target (Denmark)
Reviewed by: Kenn Jensen
Date: 24 January, 2011
Website: Thomas Giles @ MySpace