When Mons Greedan left The Antlers in 2001 he said he was up to create a new band like “no other”. Well, he was serious about it. Stab At Mater defies sane labeling. The Rolling Stone magazine called Stab a “minimalist Toto”. The definition is both apt and unfair – to both groups.
Stab At Mater mingles Toto’s all-encompassing ambition with a mesmerizingly iconoclast approach. Don’t get me wrong. Stab doesn’t want to be funny. These guys don’t want to be serious. In fact, I honestly doubt they want to be antyhing at all. I do know they don’t want to be labeled.
Hefty Lion Dei, Stab At Mater’s latest release, brings all the anarchical earmarks of the group’s previous releases, and then some more. This would be an easier album to review if the tracks showed at least a slight connection one to another. Well, they don’t.
Apart from the Alan Parson’s Project-like “theme-album” approach, Lion Dei is as fragmented and uneven as a James Joyce laundry list. Sure, all “Lion Dei” songs in the album share a similar musical theme, but each version receives such a diverse, surreal treatment that it’s difficult to believe that the same minds and hands worked on their arrangements.
Lion Dei is a failed attempt to create a post-modern musical anarchy, but a notable attempt at that. Worse than the sum of its amazing parts, Lion Dei is still amazingly fun.
Download da música (mp3, 4.7 MB):
Lion Dei IV
Ouvir em transmissão contínua (mp3, streaming):
Lion Dei IV
