Conor Fynes 'World' - Gigantic Brain (6/10)

I would be lying if I did not say that this album surprised me. Gigantic Brain's first album was a sixty-two track hour of noise, nonsense, and bad taste. Taking the dissonance and digital choppiness of cybergrind and feeding spoonful after spoonful of noise to me was not something I ultimately found all that enjoyable, even if it was an interesting style that this one man project was playing. To summarize, I really did not like 'The Invasion Discography'. I was however, convinced to check out the second album, with the promise that it would realize the potential I heard in the debut. 'World' is indeed a huge step in a new direction for Gigantic Brain. Instead of focusing on the rusty grindcore elements, the project instead shifts its gaze towards more ambient territory. The result is still a fairly scattered album, but there is a lot more quality and depth here than what I heard before.

While there is still some of the cybergrind moments that 'The Invasion Discography' was full of here, most of Gigantic Brain's sound here revolves around ambient music, using alot of electronics to create soothing soundscapes. There is also a comfortable middle ground here that really impressed me; a melodic post-metal style that Gigantic Brain is very good at doing. Not sounding unlike Devin Townsend at parts, there is a futuristic sound that when paired with the atmospheric guitar work, paints a interesting image of space and nebulae. Gigantic Brain starts on what it without a doubt its strongest note; 'We've Reached The Stars'. A beautifully crafted post-metal track that uses Townsend-esque bombast and a wall of sound, my jaw dropped when I first starting listening to 'World', it was unlike anything I expected a Gigantic Brain album to sound like. Also, at four minutes long, this is comparable to, well, a regular song length, as opposed to the ten second jabs that I heard so much of earlier in this project's life.

Gigantic Brain does revert to its old ways later in the album, with songs that consist of inhumanly fast drum machines and blistering guitar chugging, all compressed into song lengths that rarely peek over the minute-long wall. These tracks don't tend to impress me in any way, especially considering they aren't much more than a reprise of what was on the debut. Thankfully though, these snippets are few and far between, most of the tracks are geared towards soothing ambiance. After a masterful first track though, I did find myself a little disappointed by the rest of the album, and some of these ambient pieces are prone to noodling around with synths.

'World' is definitely a huge, marked improvement over its predecessor, and there are flashes of brilliance here. That being said, it still gives me that meandering sensation with a lot of the filler that is here.

Conor Fynes 'They Did This To Me' - Gigantic Brain (7/10)

Although this enigmatic one-man project began almost exclusively as a cybergrindcore act, Gigantic Brain has since touched up its sound into something that is quite a bit more ambient, melodic, and atmospheric, rather than the obnoxious drum machine worship that plagued their debut. First showing a shift to ambient music with the second album 'World', Gigantic Brain has now developed into something that works much better with my personal tastes. 'They Did This To Me' is the fourth full-length outing by this act, and once again, I am finding myself impressed by what this guy can do with ambient textures, but turned off by the shallow grind elements. Luckily though, there is less grind in his sound than ever here.

If I was going to make a quick comparison to another artist with Gigantic Brain, it would be Devin Townsend. GB's ambient sounds are brilliantly layered with a deep wall of sound that sounds like it is from another world, and although this project still suffers from fairly scattered album structures and a lack of cohesion, the way he layers sounds atop one another is incredible. By 'ambient' as well, I don't necessarily mean quiet textures; there is stuff here that can get heavier, without diving into grindcore. The comfortable middle ground that Gigantic Brain minds is best described as post-metal, and while the drum machine is still cold and dispassionate sounding, the guitars and synthesized ambiance is very well done.

I get the feeling that there is some sort of atheistic narrative here about God not existing and there being no inherent meaning to life, although this is only brought about by the moments of spoken word dialogue; the growls here are utterly unintelligible, so they're best taken simply as another layer of sound, rather than someone speaking. For the sake of the album's ambiance, this is a good step forward, and helps bring about some level of heaviness, without losing the dreamy vibe of it all. There is lots of variety here amongst the ambient stuff, but- as always- my gripe with this album are the grindcore moments. I am not necessarily opposed to grindcore as a musical genre, but here, it does nothing but to throw off the mood of the rest of the album. There are only a few moments here that are devoted to the drum machine blastbeats, screaming, and downtuned guitar noise, so it's more a case of being a slight nuisance in between the interesting material that Gigantic Brain has to offer.

This is a very interesting ambient metal project, and while I still have some things to criticize about what Gigantic Brain is doing here, there are more than enough interesting ideas and beautiful moments to make the less glorious aspects worth it.

Sheavy (Original review from ProgArchives.com)

On this album, I was very torn between giving it a three star or a four star. I was considering three stars because there are quite a few songs that get on my nerves after a little bit, the first song, Heaven, and the last song, You Taste Like A Pill. Then theres The End Of Time for which with almost any other band I would not have had a problem with the length of this song, but for this band and the musical style which they still inhibit (although they are on the extreme fringes) is grindcore, and that song is just too long and repetitive. Gigantic Brain's shorter Ambient/Post songs are great, but there should have been something else happen in that song.

As for the rest of the album it is kind of standard fare for this band. The grindcore is still present, and the soft, dreamy Ambient and Post songs are also still there. It is a bit shorter amount of songs, but it is made up by the "long" song.

Still very good album, but I hope the next one does something a little different, but this is still a excellent album, and I have to round this up to a four star.

Sheavy (original review from ProgArchives.com)

This album is the third from cybgergrind band Gigantic Brain, and while not being quite as amazing as their second album, it is still very enjoyable. The Ambient/Post is still there and there seems to be a lot less of the grind element in Gigantic Brains music now. There seems to be a lot more of a Groove Death Metal sound in the music. Also the growls and screams are much more understandable now, and no where near as intense as previous albums. Being able to understand a lot more of the lyrics also shows that there is some sick humor running throughout some of the songs (Just Pet That Kitty). Another thing that has changed is that the songs seem more focused on earthly things instead of space and aliens, even though it is (as evidence by the album title) not completely gone now. The music is very good and the only song that i do not care for is We're Just a F**king Video Game To Them. I do not like the annoying voice, and the sound of something eating or being eaten which is very disturbing, especially with the monotonous piano note and haunting background synth. It also is a tad longer and I think it would been better leaving some of the songs out (even if though they are not bad songs), like the aforementioned song, and Deer Conversation, and My Beautiful Sun, and Sol.

Another solid release from Gigantic Brain in their own little style of ummmmmmm..........

How about I make up a term? Post-Grindcore.

Sheavy (original review from ProgArchives.com)

Wow. This album really blew me away. It is a massive step forward in songwriting and it has a much more mature feel to it. The music on this album is going in a totally new direction from the last album. The grindcore moments are still there, but there is a lot more post rock/metal moments and ambient songs. It does not sound like anhything else that i have ever heard. The best comparison I can think of, is bands like Burzum who mix ambient with dark metal blasting, but this album sounds nothing like that other than that very small similarity. The ambient parts have a very spacey sort of feel and it runs through the whole album. This album could almost be a kind of "sequel" to the first album, in that it feels like there is a story between the two, even though I do not really think so, but that is just a feeling I kind of get. The Invasion Discography was very heavy and intense and blasted away, and it could have been about these aliens coming down and utterly destroying anything and everything, and this album almost has a kind of aftermath type of feel with the ambient, and the grindcore parts feel like some of the last humans alive came across one of these extra terristrial beings and are running or fighting it. This album has jumped into my absolute favorite albums of all time, and I highly recommend this album.