Masters of the Hemisphere - I am not a Freemdoom
(Kindercore)
I am not a huge fan of pop, but it seems like every year there are 1 or 2
pop albums that I like a whole lot. This album, Masters of the Hemisphere's
I am not a Freemdoom, may very well be one of them. The album is a concept
album/rock opera about an evil dog named Freemdoom, his unloyal henchman Gorgar,
and our heroes Mal and Ed, and includes a comic book to be read as the music
plays. It's like Pet Sounds if Brian Wilson had concentrated less on the Sounds
and more on the Pets.
The songs of this popopera do not cover the entire plot of the comic, so in
order for this album to be at all successful, the music has to stand well on its
own. Luckily, it does. The lyrics are not at all forced, even without any
attention to the story, so you can still get wrapped up in the choruses and
vocal harmonies without bothering with the comic. The hooks are solid as well,
mostly from acoustic guitar and keyboards but a wide range of instruments are
used to compliment them. Reading the book along with the album will make the
lyrics more meaningful, but I doubt that you'll do that more than once. In
fact, it may be sufficient just to skim the book after a few listens to the
album, see all the cute pictures of severed heads, and then put the book away.
The story is simple and straightforward; the real prize to this album is the
music and singing.
Listening to this album reminds me somewhat of listening to those first
two Verbena singles. The songs are simple, bare, and catchy, and the
vocal harmonies are irresistible even if they are not perfectly matched
pitchwise. Where Verbena added early 90s fuzzy fuzz to make their sound
more weighty, Masters of the Hemisphere uses standard late 90s Elephant 6
trickery, while still remaining minimal in their arrangements. If Verbena was
cute like underage Calvin Klein models or Jonathon Taylor Thomas, Masters of
the Hemisphere is cute like puppy dogs and fairy tales, which is of course
less interesting (in other words, less sexy) but still undeniably cute.
But how cute do you have to be to be too cute? How cute before I start to throw
up? Masters of the Hemisphere must see that line between cute and too cute.
And not only do they see it, they pogo up and down it, mocking it and me with
their wide smiles and boyish glee. I am not a Freemdoom is a cute, fun album
for cute, fun people; I guess all you really have to decide is whether or not
you are cute and fun enough for it.
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