Athena – Athena (Pasaj)
Reviewed by Sadie O., 11/1/06
Turkish hard rock/ska. Most of the early songs fuse a lot of styles, some of the later ones are pretty straightforward hard rock in the Turkish style. The bass and vocals are terrific.
All in Turkish; no FCCs. I like the first couple tracks best.
1. 3:59 ****starts with slow, exotic electric guitar, then fairly uptempo rockin’ ska. Plenty of Turkish elements, but all-Western instrumentation. Nice bounce.
2. 3:05 ****swingy, somewhat uptempo, almost a psychobilly beat, fun bopper.
3. 3:51 ***fairly uptempo bounce, basically ska, but HAPPY ska…
4. 4:00 ***fairly uptempo, hard rock with a somewhat funky beat
5. 4:04 ***somewhat uptempo reggae beat, nice bassline, chicken scratch guitar. Long fade.
6. 3:24 ***fast hard rocker, punk aspects. Fun stuff.
7. 3:29 **somewhat uptempo 4/4 hard rock
8. 3:33 *midtempo (sounds downtempo for this lot) a bit new-wavey, subdued bits.
9. 3:45 ***midtempo hard rock, well crafted song. Nice bass work.
10. 40:42 **midtempo but subdued hard rock a la Turk. Song actually lasts 4:51. Then at 6:50 (33:52 remaining) there’s suddenly a 1 minute uptempo bopper that’s really quite daft, then at 8:19 remaining there’s very low key, slow, rather menacing music, and a very slow sort of ska-polka. Falls apart at about 2:12 remaining, bur revives itself into a rather demented midtempo gallop. I like the track, but it really is presented at the bonus track from hell…