The Evolution of the Dark Side of the Moog

Given the iTunes samples I heard, I was expecting many tracks with consistent ambience and melodic depth. However, there is a fair amount of non-ambient hyperactivity on this album, and most of the melodies and riffs on it dance around a bit, while few of them have anything big to say in any one direction or another. -- The Intro and track I furthered my expectations of an album that would easily engage me, with a welcome from the inventor of the Moog followed by swirling, captivating, ambient synthesizer tones. -- II stoked my expectations further by blasting into a rousing ambient rhythm, but soon turned me off by adding in a hollow thud percussion that I find distractingly overbearing to the point that it undermines the ambience for me. Eventually the rhythm ceases, replaced by what sounds like rapid, manual trilling of synthesizer notes on the keyboard. The trilling seems to display an enjoyment of skilled finger-play, but is so rapid that most of the complexity of the synthesizer sounds is chopped off. Towards the end of the track, the ambient rhythm with the distracting percussion returns with less intensity than before. -- III/3 is centered around some kind of regularly beeping EKG machine, with some mild ambient background and the occasional odd synthesizer sound thrown in. This track gets me nowhere. -- III/4 has a bouncing, attractive beat, but I could not find any inspiration in its melody. -- IV/7 is a very deep-toned clock-tower bell slowly chiming, that's all. -- IV/8 has a fast drumbeat accompanied by a lot of frenetic tweeting and beeping. This kind of mosh-ready hyperness never does anything for me, at least not these days. -- V/8 has rapidly oscillating synthesizer sounds, some ambient chorus, and moves briefly into an engaging, dynamic riff towards the end. -- VI/6 starts out similar to track I, but slowly evolves into more bouncy beeps with a fast rhythm, ultimately leaving me with nothing to enjoy. -- VII/6, again, starts out similar to track I, with an even grander progression of ambient tones, and follows through to its end with intermittent, delicate, blue piano playing. This is one track on the album that may stick with me. -- VIII/2 briefly shows how wildly the synthesizer can oscillate, but does little else. -- VIII/6 starts off with an intense rhythm similar to track II, and eventually adds in some blazing, trilling sounds that sound manual. However, I am not much interested in acrid, guitar-like trilling, either, so this track doesn't do much for me.

I have known about The Dark Side of the Moog series for a while but I never really listened to any tracks so I thought this album would be a great place to start. I am a huge fan of Kraftwerk and electronic music/synthesizers. When I listened to this album I was amazed at how rich and powerful the sounds are and really kicked me back when I listened to it in my car sound system. I highly recommend this album for people who like electronic music.