Progtronica is an intriguing listen. Billed as a music anomaly, mixing elements of prog and electronica, Gumshen aren’t afraid of mixing things up and experimenting with their sound, which is good to see.
The album begins rather lightly with Bell Ringer, with simplistic instrumentation underneath the vocals which works well to ease the listener into the album before a fuller sound kicks in. There are parts where the vocals seem ever-so-slightly out of tune, but as a whole the song is a nice, easy listen that gets things off to a good and solid start.
Another great track is Bait & Switch, which is a more electronic-fuelled track with quite an aggressive approach to the vocals. There’s something about this track which just makes it stand out from the crowd, with some fantastically noisy instrumentation and a good fast pace to it. Definitely a track worth checking out.
Unfortunately, for the larger part, the album as a whole doesn’t have a tremendous amount of variety. Progtronica certainly features some fantastic solo-work and interesting melody ideas throughout, but as a whole it feels like Gumshen could have made the tracks a little individual. They’ve found their own sound, which is good, but it would be better if there was a little more variation because each track largely follows the same sort of format and it’s quite disappointing as a result.
It’s a shame, because there’s a lot of potential for the band to grow within these six songs, not to mention the fact they’ve practically created their own genre that’s accessible and easy to listen to. Progtronica is good, but it just would have been a bit more engaging with a little more individuality between songs.
6/10
