People for Audio, The New Ancients

Have you ever taken enough Tylenol PM to become drowsy, but not enough to kill the throbbing pain between your eyes? That’s pretty much what listening toThe New Ancients feels like. Oh, don’t get me wrong; People for Audio are entirely capable of creating some engaging, enjoyable music — they just choose not to. There’re a few tracks scattered about the album that stand out as impressive slabs of low-key, drifting psych-rock, but the rest is utterly useless.

So, what are they doing wrong? People for Audio are skilled musicians and they know it, so they go about attempting to make every song into, as the promo blurb pasted on the cover of their CD says, “epic art-rock” and “grandiose psych rock masterpieces.” Now, do you think that when King Crimson went into the studio to record In the Court of the Crimson King, they did so intending beforehand that it would be a “grandiose psych rock masterpiece”? The end result is The New Ancients sounds contrived and pedantic and leaves the listener frustrated and tired. They may be people for audio, but they aren’t people for good audio…