REVIEWS

Buy this album from CD Baby

Celldweller
Soundtrack for the Voices in My Head Vol. 1

FIXT Music

Posted: Friday, January 09, 2009
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

Even before the release of the debut Celldweller album in early 2003, Klayton was on the road to establishing himself as a versatile talent in the music community. After the dissolution of his first band, Circle of Dust, his collaboration with illusionist Criss Angel demonstrated his ability to combine searing electronic and industrial modes with symphonic arrangements that lent a cinematic quality to his music. This combination led to Celldweller's music being featured in numerous film trailers over the years, and has now culminated in this latest release, Soundtrack for the Voices in My Head Vol. 1. As the title indicates, the 22 tracks that comprise this release are much more soundtrack-oriented, primarily instrumental in nature, and very suited to the musical/audio accompaniment that film/TV/video games would require for their visuals. This is not to say that what is presented doesn't stand on its own, although the brevity of the majority of the tracks is sure to leave Celldweller fans and fans of this cross-genre style of hard electronica in general assuredly begging for more. From the hard-hitting "Narrow Escape" with its hard-hitting breakbeats to the trancelike textures and grinding guitars of "Surgical," and even in the slow rhythms and discordant harmonics of "Outland," each track instills images in the listener's mind, evoking just the kinds of scenes they are apparently intended to underscore. Just listen to the horrific chorale and creeping atmospheres of "Subterra" and try not to imagine underground caverns in which monstrous entities lurk just around the corner. There is also the frigid resonances and rapid-fire beats of "Descent," a track that will undoubtedly remind many Klayton fans of his work with Criss Angel, and then there are the four mixes of "Ursa Minor," all of which retain the length and progression, but each with an emphasis on a different element of the song's intense buildup. The real star of the CD is "Birthright," presented here in various versions, including its original "Baseline" demo and an instrumental version. The Beta 1.0 version is the "official" version of the song until its inclusion on the next Celldweller record, but it has all the power and intensity of a finished track. One can only dare to imagine what new tricks Klayton has in store for the final version, while the Blue Stahli "Birthwrong" remix deconstructs the track into a furious hail of glitches and skittering beats. Some might find the two-and-a-half-minute length too short, but given the sheer amount of audio information to be taken in, if the track were any longer it would be almost unbearable. It's all such a tightly-knit package that Soundtrack for the Voices in My Head Vol. 1 serves multiple purposes: 1) providing Celldweller fans some new original material to sate their impatience for the second full-length album, and 2) indicating the true breadth of Klayton's talents as a musician and a producer and his interest in stretching out into the realm of soundtracks and forward-thinking scores for visual media. Filmmakers, TV studios, and video game designers would do well to take notice of Celldweller.