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Review: 'Emperor Yes'
'An Island Called Earth'   

-  Album: 'An Island Called Earth' -  Label: 'Alcopop! Records'
-  Genre: 'Pop' -  Release Date: '13th October 2014'

Our Rating:
At times not so much Emperor Yes as simply Yes, courtesy of some epic swirling keyboard breaks worthy of Rik Wakeman at his most extravagant, there are some impressive musical moments to be found on the trio’s debut album. But for the most part, it’s all about Midge Ure era Ultravox synths and some truly abysmal lyrics. Take the first track, ‘The End of the World’, for starters. Clumsy doesn’t come close. It may not be the end of the world. But lyrics like ‘...and the frogs rained down from the sky / they hit the ground and croaked their last / croak / and the ground opened up beneath / a herd of wildebeast / who dodged the cracks / that were vomiting up the blood / Of the earth which burned the trees’ are pretty catastrophic. And I’m not talking about the scene of biblical destruction.

The glittery electro disco of ‘Cosmic Cat’ is bright and crisp and uber-retro, but some widescreen cinematic production elevates it significantly. ‘Cosmos’ is every bit as immense as the title suggests and the darker post-punk stylings of ‘Mirror’ are big on atmosphere and driving percussion, the latter in particular building to an immense, surging climax. Oh, but the lyrics are so, so dreadful: ‘..I see a shark / my laughter sounds like a little puppy dog’, the singer swoons.

Elsewhere, the absurd and surreal space / animal imagery and synesthesia that dominates the lyrical content reaches new heights of ridiculousness, as on ‘Monkey King’, where ‘the shapeshifting monkey that came from a stone / he needed a horse that could run in the sky’ and so on.

It’s a pity, because it detracts from some slivers of nifty tunage and interesting ideas. It may not bother some people, but for me, it’s a case of Emperor maybe not, thanks.

Emperor Yes Online
  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Emperor Yes - An Island Called Earth