Ni
Pantophobie

When French band Ni comes up with a new album it is one of many phobias, it may be entitled Pantophobie but there are plenty of other phobias through the list of songs. It is also an album with a quite elaborate cover artwork, it has lot of depth and stuff but why do they have a giant nose on the CD, that’s just stupid – especially when the artwork is that cool. But I guess you don’t have to look at the CD when you plug it into the music machine.

Musically it is math-rock and noise, that is how they describe it in the press material and that is probably a good description of what we get to hear when we are listening to this album. And we don’t get much in terms of variation and a very busy soundscape, kind of like the artwork but more chaos and less elaborate. It is probably less exciting than the artwork as well. The songs flow together into a big mass of sound and not too much nuance, something that also makes the album seem a bit long.

It is not an impressive album, the songs are a lot more boring than many songs I have heard this year and none of the tracks stand out above the others which makes the album seem flat and uninteresting. And it doesn’t really stand out compared with other noise rockers and I find the equations to be simple and uninteresting, but fans of Ni and of the noisy genre might find this album to be quite agreeable even though it may not end up being interesting for the major audiences.

If it wasn’t bad for the environment it could be preferable to flush this one down the toilet, but that wouldn’t be good and perhaps a little bit unfair – they aren’t really bad, just boring. But now I have to disappear and avoid this album due to the irrational fear of this album, Pantophobiephobia is what they call it.

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