Sholi: 'Sholi'
Despite what interviews or reviews with Sholi may make you believe about being strongly influenced by Persian Classical music and Bob Dylan making them sound like high brow cultured musicians. Sholi unfortunately sound like nothing more then a soft-pop rock band, which is exactly what they are. The album attempts to sound witty, ground-breaking and innovative with frantic bits of guitar riffs and drum solos over random parts of songs.
Opening track 'All that we can see' follows this very rule, with added sections of keys and reverberating guitars. Vocals are later added to the mix, however they fall flat and instead of being an exciting song it ends up sounding messy and dull. The song also starts and stops at various points which feel unneeded and can be quite frustrating as a result.
'November through June' shows potential vocally however it’s difficult to truly absorb the lyrical genius which I’m sure is lurking beneath when the song never seems to be sure what it. It manically swaps from mellow guitar driven track to a reggae inspired sound to something resembling harder rock. The result is as soon as you are getting into the song it’s shot off somewhere in completely the opposite direction to where you were enjoying it being. 'Dance for hours' and 'Out of orbit' show great potential with their almost torch song style yet never really go anywhere, thus the songs ends up feeling unsatisfying and empty.
The album has one almost saving grace however 'Spy in the House of the Memories', a track that sounds a lot like a Beatles song from the 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' era. Yet once again lacks anything that makes it a truly great piece of song writing.
It is obviously from the very second you hear the album that the every track has been meticulously pondered over, examined and tweaked to get the exact sound the band want. However this may have played to Sholi’s disadvantage, it appears that the bands influences are so eclectic and they have been intent on putting them all in that in the end it just sounds like a jumbled up un-cohesive mess. Sholi have enormous promise yet need to tighten up if they are ever going to be anything big.
Words: Kevin Angel
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