THE AMNIS INITIATIVE: Alternate Timelines (2021)
“There are contagious tracks and melodies to give gooseflesh to a rock in this album”
1 Singularity 4:58
2 Hunted 3:08
3 Pale Blue Dot 4:53
4 Crossroads 5:50
5 1978 5:07
6 Charged Particles 5:04
7 Shimmering Waves 3:44
8 Destination Unknown 5:17
9 Epiphany 5:30
10 Duality 4:09
11 Evening Shadows 3:23
12 Anemoia 7:47
13 TX-500 4:07
14 Welcome to the Blue Zone 4:01
15 Burning Sun 2:36
16 1991 6:01
(CD/DDL 75:35) (V.F.)
(Soundtrack, E-Rock, EM)
I had been enormously seduced by Ejection last year. But still, I found some difficulties to join the electronic symphonic rock style of ALTERNATE TIMELINES. Built around the probabilities of time travels, this new album of The Amnis Initiative has the attributes of its ambition. A very good melodist, Dennis Lodewijks creates an incomparable science fiction soundtrack where the soul of his compositions flirt with the last 4 decades well-orchestrated by the immense possibilities of synthesizers. The strength of this album lies in its musical architecture with powerful arrangements and sounds in every nanosecond. The percussions and percussive effects are the cornerstone of the rhythms that also rely on the work of the sequencer and this orchestral tissue worthy of the great symphonic rocks. The album is lively with a panoply of rhythms whose roots go back as far as the first experiments of Synergy, with a fascinating nod to progressive rock bands while touching on the arrangements of the synth-pop years, without forgetting the roots of Vangelis. In short, a lot of styles, big driving rock and beautiful eardrum-eating melodies await us in the corridors of ALTERNATE TIMELINES.
And to entice his audience, Dennis Lodewijks inserts 4 to 5 tracks that hook us instantly, like Singularity that starts with a solid cosmic rock propelled by a mesh of bass-sequences and sober percussions. The track offers a good intergalactic vision with passages fueled by weird voices, probably relayed by a faulty vocoder, and others that are filled with interstellar noises and sound effects, if not some very good synth solos. Taken from the Terminator Revisited EP, Hunted is another electronic rock track that comes to life some 30 seconds after church bells ringing. More electronic with a heavy bass-sequences line that starts to oscillate from ear to ear, the percussions that harpoon it adds more depth in heaviness. The howls that charge towards its finale give it a more cinematic feel. Vangelis being at the heart of The Amnis Initiative's influences, it should come as no surprise to hear tracks that plunge us squarely into that universe, like Pale Blue Dot which is as beautiful as Italian Song from the Private Collection album. Crossroads is a track with a slow and orchestral progression whose melodious impulses increase its intensity. One could say that it is a ballad set on a structure interspersed of meditative phases filled by beautiful harmonies that shimmer in place. The electronic bolero revives at each turn with an emotional velocity that reaches its peak in a slightly dramatic finale. A track like 1978 is candy for my ears. Driven by a splendid set of percussions and percussive effects, the track progresses with a ghostly velocity. The bass feeds mainly a progression maintained in a static state on laments of a synth with prismatic perfumes. A splendid title which