For a name like Applied Communications, it’s ironic that the project struggles to communicate even the slightest emotional or lyrical content. Built on childhood desires and teenage angst, Applied Communications (a.k.a. Max Wood) has the best of intentions but difficulty with execution. As spastic interludes often get in the way of any semblance of cohesiveness, Applied Communication's latest disc, Heavenly Gospel — a conglomeration of doughy keyboards, spoken-word vocals, and intermittent noise barrages — often sounds disjointed and confused rather than rambunctiously playful as was almost certainly intended.
His sound is not wholly unprecedented. If defunct power-poppers The Unicorns are the Bazooka Bubble of this off-kilter pop, Applied Communications is Double Mint: slightly watered-down, with a shorter joyous high and ultimately less appeal to those who consume the treat. But even so, Heavenly Gospel carries a punch that’s hyperactive and uncomfortably exciting.
Through the schizophrenic outbursts, the album is strangely, yet incredibly well-paced. Applied Communications goes from the blazing intensity of “Sails” to the composed drones of “Eleanor Friedberger’s Throat” rather seamlessly. Heavenly Gospel keeps you immediately off balance, yet expectant and prophetic of what’s to come. Even within individual tracks, it manages to twist your senses around. Proper opener “Awesome Fantasies” fluctuates between driving punk à la McKlusky and underspoken keyboard lines and mumbled vocals.
But this constant shifting is a double-edged sword. As few tracks play past three minutes, there’s little for listeners to actually hang onto. The disc feels less like a collected album and more like a movie trailer: random scenes to excite and pique interest but ultimately devoid of substance. Heavenly Gospel seems more the tip of the iceberg, the sneak peak of something more substantial to come in the future.
The vocals present a similar problem. The random shrieks that tear through the album are disorientingly distant. Rabid yelling quickly gives way to incoherent moaning on “Endorphin Push” before crumbling into a mass of feedback and hazy screams. With little lyrical content, the album is further jolting and seems to be based on random upheaval. However, given the proficiency Applied Communications shows with random noises and spacey sonics, this may have been somewhat premeditated, attempting to wed these apparent complimenting dissenters. Unfortunately, these two negatives do not make a positive.
What Heavenly Gospel ultimately lacks is this composure in the midst of chaos. Rather than constructing this sonic blitzkrieg, it seems as though Applied Communications simply happened upon it — a collage of sounds that amounted to an album; a sum perfectly equal to the whole of its parts. And because of this, in the face of obvious talent, Heavenly Gospel is simply too transparently accidental to achieve everything it attempts to.
1. Eats Battery Acid
2. Awesome Fantasies
3. GSM Satellites and Radiation Vegetables_ Cover the Forest with Skin and Yr Muscles with Dental Porcelain
4. Echo Boom
5. _Uncontrollable Acne!_
6. Broken Up Yr Window
7. DEATHCLOUD
8. _Later, Buddy._
9. Yr Life Partner's Parties
10. Sails
11. Eleanor Friedberger's Throat
12. SEA LIFE: Songs by Adel Bengo
13. Alternative Universe July 4, 2007
14. Crooken Corneas
15. Forevs x3
16. Deland, FL and Eventual Vertical Slums
17. Elephant Cards in My Cribbage Set
18. Endorphin Push
19. _Babe, I Love You!_
More about: Applied Communications
