Thursday, May 21, 2015

Mylets - Arizona: Album Review

http://myletsmusic.com/arizona
Mylets is Henry Kohen. An American prodigy, skinny, ginger and barely out of his teens. Who wrote performed and produced every note of 'Arizona' by himself.  If you listen to the album you'll understand quite how impressive that is. 'Trembling hands' is an amazing opening track. Which demonstrates his knack for mixing genres. He layers guitars on top of each other, some playing nifty licks, others playing huge riffs. All this is fed together and backed by electronic sounds which give the song a Nine Inch Nails feel. Which is only made more apparent by Kohen's throaty growl. However there is far more to Mylets than bombastic rock. The next few tracks are a little bit mellower, yet every bit as complex. I hate to use this word to describe any band, but the word that springs to mind is EMO. Not the emo which 00's teens like me listened to (Fall out Boy, Panic and the disco, Bleeuughhh) but more like the emo which bands such as Refused and At the drive in laid the ground work for. Like those bands 'Arizona' is at times brutal but the instrumentation has an emotional depth that few of Mylets peers can match. The only real draw back to 'Arizona' is that for a rock album it is very nerdy. It sounds a bit clinical, a bit like rock music made in a laboratory rather than by 4 lads having the time of their lives. Yet by going it alone Kohen is able to let his talent shine. It would sound a bit better with some heavier, louder drums, but the guitar playing is stunning from start to finish. Not having a band means he can go from sounding crushingly heavy to sweet, soft and delicate in the blink of an eye. Ultimately I feel that Mylets is the missing link between the radio friendly emo that used to dominate the radio and the hardcore, industrial sounds of Nine Inch Nails. Few acts have ever mixed rock and electronics this well. There are no real tunes that I can see myself falling in love with, yet I think there is an audience just waiting to hear Mylets, who will love his music

7/10