Sky Eats Airplane Review
by Mark Hensch
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Attacking metalcore like some unstoppable computer virus, Sky Eats Airplane's self-titled record rewrites the standard heavy music coding. While most of today's metalcore bands are content with chugging riffs and smashing breakdowns, Sky Eats Airplane subverts that formula with pulsing electronica beats, winding polyrhythms and melodic shredding. The end result is a Computer Age band which breathes new life into a stale genre, upgrading it into something much more interesting.
Kicking off with the stellar "Long Walks on Short Bridges," Sky Eats Airplane immediate establishes itself as a versatile band. "Bridges" throbs with an electronica heartbeat, the likes of which pumps very real blood and sweat into a twisting, mathematic beatdown. Topped off with dreamy, digital guitar notes and soulful crooning, the song makes a wonderful introduction to the band and its record alike.
Next up is the moody "Transparent," a song which starts off as a psychedelic conjuration before launching into an energetic blastoff of raw emotion. Its mechanical breakdowns and breathless choruses further up the ante, giving the song an eerie, robotic tone which recurs throughout the entire disc.
Breakout single "Numbers," for its part, bucks this trend. A jittery rocker with glitch-y breakdowns, "Numbers" walks a fine line between melody and mania, often achieving both in mere seconds. Now that is multi-tasking!
"Photographic Memory," meanwhile, throws plenty of curveballs. Though it begins as a chilling metalcore stomper, the song soon swaps skins with cathartic arena rock, at one point even storming through a dance-floor beat massacre.
The album's heaviest song is easily "Disconnected," a dense monster which breaks down even the strongest firewalls. Rhythmic and uncompromising, "Disconnected" lays down its hurt alongside punishing electronica runs befitting recent Dillinger Escape Plan and Genghis Tron. Unlike those bands, however, Sky Eats Airplane seems consistently melodic in even the coldest of beats.
The last song worth mentioning is the infectious "Alias," a tune so phenomenally memorable I cannot believe it has not run roughshod over college radio like a worm virus. Between its massive breakdowns and its exuberant choruses, there is an energy here 99% of most bands in this genre have missed.
Soothing yet spastic, Sky Eats Airplane is a wild ride which could only be spawned in the wake of the internet. Though it at times feels like a bunch of file-sharing gone horribly wrong, Sky Eats Airplane is an original take on a generic style. Expect bright things from these guys.
Sky Eats Airplane's Sky Eats Airplane
Introduction
Long Walks on Short Bridges
Transparent
Numbers
World Between Us
Photographic Memory
In Retrospect
The Artificial
Disconnected
Machines
Alias
CD Info and Links
Sky Eats Airplane Rating:8.5
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