Central Funktion’s Nightlife Of The Gods has made its way to The Pulse, but compared to The Beatles, Tom Petty and some of the other pseudo (alternative according to their myspace page) pop/rock bands it attempts to emulate, it is an epic fail.
The arrangements are extremely straightforward, featuring basic rock ’n’ roll instrumentation: electric guitars, bass, drums and vocals, with a few other instruments (horns, acoustic guitar) making appearances. The production focuses on the simplicity of the instrumentation and songwriting. The mixes create clearly defined frequencies zones for the individual instruments, but in this case, the tones of the instruments are too weak to stand out so much and be so dry. Also, there are some basic mix volume problems, especially in the lower frequency ranges with kick and bass rarely locking well.
The songwriting is similar to the production, in that it is simple and mostly pop/rock styled. In some songs, a progressive element exists, but it always feels forced. In song 5, “The Woo Song,” an abrupt shift in direction feels so out of place I thought a new song started.
One of my main issues with this album is the vocals. At several points, the music was moving along smoothly and I could see it appealing to the listener, but at these times (like with the first line of the first song), the vocals came in and attempted to make a statement. In many cases, these “statement” inflections come across as forced and do not sit right. This is a classic case of a vocalist attempting to sound like something other than himself?if he had simply sang in his normal voice without inflection, it would have worked much better.
Compared to most local music, Nightlife Of The Gods is average, but compared to major releases, the production, songwriting, arrangement and vibe do not stand up. They would do well to experiment with new arrangements and focus future mixes on spatial imaging and depth. A little bit of reverb and panning can go a long way to create the impression instruments are together.
