ANATOMY OF HABIT

ANATOMY OF HABIT     “Paired Sentinels”

By Dr. Abner Mality

First off, what a cool looking cover for this effort! A work of collage art that really catches the eye! It’s a complex image, but the actual music of ANATOMY OF HABIT is rather simple. It’s what I call “REAL alternative rock”...not the watered down stuff that gets played on the radio.

The band is from Chicago and the only name I recognized in the group is Mark Solotroff, who has his fingers in a number of avant-garde projects. The music is highly rhythmic in construction, placing great emphasis on percussion mixed with throbbing bass notes. It is also very reliant on repetition…which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. There is a vague TOOL like feeling to the way things unfold, but certainly not to the point where ANATOMY OF HABIT could be accused of being a knockoff. As you might have guessed, the tracks are pretty long; there’s just four songs, two of which exceed the 13 minute mark.

“Always Arriving” announces itself with a barrage of tribal drumming and throbbing bass…Solotroff’s vocals are a robotic chant with a vaguely “country touch”. This track is pretty cool in the way it builds in intensity, becoming massively heavy at the end. The country feeling is unavoidable in the early part of the long-running “Conditions For Freedom”, with guitar almost sounding like sad Americana music. But the track then builds once more to a powerful climax. Is it metal? I don’t think so, but the power is there.

I didn’t like the last two songs as much. The repetition becomes a real burden on “The Importance of Risk”, leading to fatigue, while the title track can’t sustain its huge length, although the synth washes that end it are quite relaxing.

A hit or miss effort for me from ANATOMY OF HABIT but it’s an interesting listen.

ANATOMY OF HABIT