The Grand Psychotic Castle

This album is like a horror movie. It's extremely creepy, and features wandering lines, morbidly intense sections, and almost cheesy gothic-type keyboard sections. Each song features all-over-the place sounds, and the vocals are sometimes overpowered by the keyboards.

One thing is for sure, this weirdness is not for the guitar types. Everything in the mix is washed away along with the keyboards. The lines flow and create horror-like atmosphere, and sometimes the mix can seem like a wall of sound.

In some parts, Charmand Grimloch uses his clean vocals, which aren't bad. (He uses them on the title track). Most of the songs seem to be random samplings of journeys through the dark world of Charmand Grimloch, i.e. they seem to have an arbitrary beginning and an arbitrary ending.

The only problem I have with this is the drum machine. It can get quite distracting at times, and at others almost inaudible. I'm glad Charmand is using Trym now for drums.

Get this if you have an open mind. If you hate keyboards, don't get it. That should seem obvious.

Here we have an odd album with many different stylings, and ideas throwen into the mix which culminates into a well done album with great melodies that are all over the place, and quite unique in many parts, but that has its obvious areas which show a need for improvement. Everything on here that you hear (also cover art) was written (created) by one man, Charmond Grimloch, and for the most part written well, and definitely recorded, and mixed to a professional degree. Some pretty big credits are on here also though, like engineered by Pytten, recorded in Grieghallen, produced by James Murphy, and a few other less noteable things. Well now lets hear about the music:

The first thing you hear is a blunt vicious scream, repeated a few times, that oddly is followed by some interesting, avantgarde neo classical keyboards, with an interesting vocal pattern following the music in certain areas. Within the first few minutes of the recording one will probably decide if this is something they would like. Interesting, original, and entertaining (IMO) the intro is a good preview of whats to come.

In the second song is where my first complaint comes in (but also is relavint to most of the tracks on here), cause right off the bat the entire sound is overtaken by keyboards, and the guitars can be difficult to pick out in the mix. You can certainly tell straight off that this is the sound intended, but more guitar tone would have been more to my liking. The keyboards are layered, and have an almost morbid melodic classical feel to them, and some parts go into very peculiar melodies, and rythms built upon themselves with almost an industrial sounding aspecting to the music. Well done clean vocal arrangements also help to add to the mix in certain areas, but are certainly not overdone, and have a very unique quality to them.

When the third song comes in you vaguely notice do to an almost identical overall tone, and feel. Some guitar parts on here are higher in the mix, or are just clearer, and that is definitely an improvement from the last song. Tremelo guitar riffing nearly all the way through with a little variety here and there. Basically this is about the point I realized that the greatest aspect to this band is Charmond Grimloch's knack for writing creative, orginal, and entertaining rythms, but you also realize that a few more band members may have added more to this album since the tempos, tones, and riffing styles all seem to just be slightly changed in many areas, and can become boring afer repeated listens.

Track 4, well sounds alot like the last two, but has its slight variations. Like when the song slows down quite a bit, and the guitar picks some 4 note melody, shortly there after going into a nice melodic chord progression, and returning, but yeah it has its slight variations, but overall does lack as far as creating a unique rythm.

The title track is much better then the last 3, even though again the tone hasnt changed much, but the keyboard melodies are more jumpy (I guess thats the best way to describe it). The clean vocals are more prevelant, also the guitars are more audible on this track then the others, which is another reason why this may be the best track on here. Overall I'd say this is the pick of the album, due mostly to the larger amounts of melody change ups, vocal styels being utilized better, and just a better song, even though the overall tone has very little difference to the rest of the album (which I guess could also be seen as a good thing).

The bonus tracks on here are cool, and add more to why this is worth owning. A different album, with a sound all its own (I can think of one similiar band), and a horror esque morbid quality that is entertainingly unique. Worth checking out, but I'd recommend hearing this before purchasing.