The Amatory Murder - Exploiting Our Dreams

Let's talk about The Amatory Murder, a five man band who have a release coming out on March 31st titled, Exploiting Our Dreams. This goth rock band is a little outside of what I normally listen to, but I'm digging it for the most in spite of a few description errors I find here and there that puts a quirky little smile on my face and a few dents in the musical layouts of the songs. So, let's dig deep and give a little analysis.

First off, this band is from Brooklyn, New York, citing a various amount of well known artists as their influences, such as Lady Gaga, The Birthday Massacre, and Nine Inch Nails. They started up in 2010, and have two releases under their wing; a full length album from 2011 called A Different Frequency and and EP that was released in 2012. Those two albums led up to this point in time, in which they have another EP, with five original tracks and five remixes.

However, before I begin, I want to call out something that irks me in the wrong way. The band states that they make, "...direct emotional connections with their fans via music that stirs up the dark side we all have hidden within." Now, I am not one to really argue the message a band is trying to bring about in a person, however, when listening to this album, I found not a single reason to have any sort of dark side stir within myself. Perhaps it's because I'm used to listening to much, much, much darker music than this (as most of you may be accustomed to), so I honestly find this statement a little hysterical.

Despite my disagreement with how the band advertises their sounds to audiences, I still have to say that they produce some pretty good music. The EP starts off with A Haunting, which definitely keeps within the realm of Goth rock and hardly ever removes itself from that position. I don't really see much industrial metal touches as I've read about here and there; most of it just sounds like standard hard rock to me. The vocals sound like the whiney sounds coming out of an emo band, but it works pretty well here.

And, we're served up the same thing again with the next song, Need, perhaps just with less effects structured throughout the song. Other than that, there really wasn't much different in this one. King of Pain differed slightly by bringing forth much higher notes with the guitars, but still sounded similar to the first two songs. By the time I hit Eleanor, my enthusiasm sort of faded, once more sounding more like King of Pain, but still not breaking away from the same music I've been listening to for the whole album. And, well, when I got to the last song, Perverted Views, I actually asked myself, "What's the point of even listening to this?" because it just sounded like a copy and repeat of everything else. It bored me.

Then we hit the remixes which were very refreshing, as they changed from one song to the next. The Need mix by DJ Elbow took out all the guitars, kept in the auto-tuned vocals, and added a lot of electronics and bass. It was pretty clubby, and there were some influences from dub step found within the song, but it still came out pretty well, or, it at least served as a welcome break from all the rock I experienced.

A Haunting was also given the electronic mix treatment, coming off a lot more techno-ish than previous songs. It was a decent effort, not the best electronic treatment I've heard, but still decent.

The Panic Lift mix of Eleanor was a fairly hard dance rendition of the song, putting in a few whispers here and there to create a more creepy atmosphere. This track was definitely the type to get you off your feet and dance, more so than the others, and was good.

Need received another mix from industrial metal outfit Transdusk. It was weird to hear them create such a calm mix, though; their works are usually fairly heavy on the guitars and can definitely be thrashed to. Perhaps it was made on a day when Transdusk was feeling happy.

And, getting a sort of club remix was Eleanor, this time being mixed by both the lead singer of the band as well as Michall Spivack, we were given a fairly trance turn out for the song. It was something that I could be seen being used as a title track for a Japanese anime, but it was still pretty good.

And, that's where it ends. This album is hit and miss for myself. I mean, I like what the guys in the band can do, I really do. However, the fact that the five fresh songs written by them were pretty similar in structure turned me off. The remixes really did a fine job in refreshing things, but it still couldn't skyrocket the album to greatness. I think it's a good album, and the band is still in its early phases, so there is definitely room for improvement. They'll just have to march through the fire to get to victory. Mar 11 2014