The evil winters is a one man act with a new crunchy dream pop album out. Robert Schnettler has been writing music since his youth. He likes to focus on emotional responses. When you hear the synthetic escape he has devised with his album littlemouse his influences come through crystal clear. Schnettler was influenced heavily by the goth wave of the late ’80s and the electronic ambience of the early ’90s. Anyone with a fondness for that era of music will not be disappointed with what you get for just four tracks.
Some people have the gift of creating entire universes in their heads. Some of those people turn those worlds into books or movies; others like to construct them with music. Littlemouse has serious sci-fi movie or video game score written all over it. The heavy synth is combined with some rather worldly sounds and the result is something that feels off planet. I’ll say this, the game or movie or television show I picture is awesome. I am intrigued. At points the music gets very epic and I picture an enormous space battle going down. Other times it calms itself and I get the sense of an internal struggle within someone’s mind. I like the back and forth. All the tracks are instrumental. Each one gets a very unique tone, especially in the beginning. Track one, “Myles Thomas” gets a subtle dreamy. Number two is “Lillian” start off in a very worldly and earthy place. Three is “Slab City” and has a fabulous trippy sci-fi vibe. My favorite is by far the last track which is “Orange Sunshine.” This song has the the strictest structure of the bunch with an active percussion element. While all tracks start with signature sounds they tend to end up in a similar place of dreamy, grungy, crunchy rock. It gets very industrial and is very appealing to me. Since all tracks seem to circle back to this sound I almost wish the album was one big movement instead of divided up into tracks. My only complaint is that the tracks all seem to land in the same place at one point or another. However, if it was all just one big piece it would make more sense to me. I could have used a little more action and drama in the first three tracks. “Orange Sunshine” kind of spoiled me with possibilities and I wish there was more of that in the other tracks. The audio treatment definitely dates the tracks. This is understandable considering his influences but part of me wanted to hear certain things a bit clearer. There were so many elements and I’m not sure they all got their due. However I can appreciate the aesthetic and the dedication to what kind of sound he wanted. Littlemouse is easily enjoyable and has a lot of applications in terms of where and when you would want to hear it. The evil winters has cool ideas and is not afraid to be original and experimental. I think he’s got a solid handle on the art of transportation. If you want to be somewhere else for a while this would be your album.
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