Amateur Dynamics is one of those albums that dances on the line between dynamic and static, between progressive and stagnant. For every instance on the album where you think that Minotaur Shock might really be on to something, that this is direction all music of this sort ought to be taking, there’s another where that annoying heard-it-all-before sensation comes knocking at your door. Sometimes these occur within the same track; sometimes they even occur simultaneously, as on “Accelerated Footage.” An eclectically joyous treble line that will not fail to put a grin on anyone’s face dominates this song. The notes are all over the place, but they all seem to rotate around a fixed sonic core. Simply put, it’s pretty damn good. But the quieter bass counterpart seems to run into some problems. This bass line is not by any means bad, but it can’t exactly be called good either; rather, the most appropriate word here is 'effective' – and, as Zach Mills pointed out back in September, there’s a significant difference between these terms. The bass line certainly does its job, you can’t argue with that. But it also never engages the listener, and does nothing to push the music to the next level. The most you can really say about it is that you’re glad it’s not absent. This one moment described above is rather emblematic of the album as a whole: nearly awesome, yet also merely effective.
Other tracks skew more heavily towards one end of the spectrum or another. In general, the albums tend to fall more heavily on the awesome half of the divide, but it’s an awkward, halting relationship. “Bats,” a track towards the end of the album, can’t quite decide what to do with itself. It lurches from a super-grainy bass growl to a generic synth overture twice, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, switches pace to become a sort of been-there-done-that electro interlude. Although this sort of dynamism is the sort of thing I usually like to encourage an artist to pursue, there’s something about it that just seems, well, standard. Has eclecticism ever sounded so serviceable? I suppose there’s nothing really wrong with the song, but I certainly didn’t get anything out of it, and I can’t quite say that I’ve a great desire to listen to it again.
Other times, though, the results are much more encouraging. “This Plane is Going to Fall” features shoegaze-esque female vocals layered over a trip-hop beat, and takes a delicious minute and forty seconds to build up to the meat of the song, which then plugs along for a very pleasant three minutes. The devil is in the details, as they say, but on this track David Edwards (as Minotaur Shock is known around the house) manages to exorcize that particular demon. A seamless integration of styles and gentle transitions elevates this song above the difficulties faced by “Bats.”
Such excellence is even more noticeable on “Jason Forrest,” which qualifies as the stand-out track of the album by using many of the same structural philosophies as “This Plane is Going to Fall,” but cranked to eleven. There’s a sense of gleeful abandon on this track, as Edwards shifts styles rapidly and incorporates nuance ferociously – after about four minutes of electronica, we get lovingly shoved into an building orgy of electric guitar chords and flirty brass, which expands to the breaking point as the beats get faster and faster, and then, suddenly, it dissolves. “Jason Forrest” is a fantastic track, and it exemplifies Minotaur Shock at its best.
So, what to do with this album? Most of the songs range from decent to pretty good, with a few bordering on the realm of the excellent. More importantly, there aren’t any stinkers. Still, I’m not quite sure what to make of the stagnant elements. Are they mere laziness on Edwards’ behalf, an indication that he wasn’t quite willing to push his music all the way there? Or, are they rather failed experiments, attempts that turned out so well in “Jason Forrest” but which just missed the mark elsewhere? I don’t think that’s really for me to decide – but if I had to guess, I’d say the latter. Amateur Dynamics is an interesting album: it seems to simultaneously revel in risk and shirk from danger. At the end of the day, I suppose Edwards has done a pretty good job, because I tend to remember the former much more than the latter.
-Tom Butcher