OFFICIAL: https://skyorchid.net/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/skyorchidband
Written
by Mike Yoder, posted by blog admin
The
Traknyak brothers from Kansas have long been carving a soon to be musical
legacy across their local area. With
tour and recording dates taking them throughout Kansas, Texas and Tennessee,
they are making their radius known more and more every single day. They’ve also received airplay on at least 50
different Internet stations at this point as well. Oculus is their first full-length outing and
it deserves a careful, deliberate ear for its many musical intricacies. There’s no specific genre and the duo of
Gabriel and Daniel traverse several within each of the songs on this 10-track
offering.
The
soothing waves of the aptly titled “The River” gets things going with a
downbeat piano melody giving way to electronica drum programming and sky shot
vocals that really ascend to a big pay-off of hard guitar
meat and densely layered sound collage. What starts as a leisurely stroll ends
with volume and a wall of sound type production befitting a late great
psychedelic rock band. This record is
full of these nuances with “Sneakers” following much of the same blueprint
though it replaces the piano focal point with guitar and launches into a heavy
rocker of the highest order long before the endnote. “In the Fire (Part 1)” is a subtle dirge that
reckons of the album opener with the follow-up of “Wildfire” changing the
trajectory dramatically in a wake of acoustic guitars, superb vocal melodies
and lurching beats that open up into wider electric expanses towards the finish
line.
The
frenetic “I’ll Stop the World (Part 2)” mingles faster, riff-driven bursts with
slower downshifts that showcase a split personality between heavier and lighter
vibes that still keep mindful of excellent musical melodies and big vocal
hooks. Tempos descend on the crumbling
“Lex” and the tune’s scintillating guitar smolders, powerhouse drum thumping
and fire-forged vocal mantras. This
strange otherworldly flavor is offset by the bluesy rollick of “Breathe Easy”
and the almost ska-guitar boogie of “Take It All.” These tracks are certainly the odd man out on
the record stylistically, but somehow they fit within the overall
framework. Sky Orchid returns to darkly
shaded surrealism on “Yesterday” and “Fortify,” making for a very strong
send-off for the record at large. There
are no duds to be found here and all of the songs obviously had a long
gestation period for all of the individual parts to develop and solidify.
Oculus couldn’t be a
stronger flagship release from the brothers Traknyak. They’ve got strong musical chops, sharp
songwriting skills, fantastic ears for production and all-around full bodied
sense of how their sound should be portrayed to the masses. With the proper label push and backing that
understands their music, there is no reason that Sky Orchid couldn’t become a
household name. The duo has gotten a
sizable following from their touring and recording out in the Midwest and it’s
only a matter of time before they start branching out and taking over other
parts of the United States. Oculus is a fantastic debut that should
be heard by everyone.
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