3 out of 5

Label: Postfact

Produced by: Atom Smith, Kent Holmes

Some spottedly brilliant art-rock compositions – definitely a throughline to Treyfid’s previous band, Pitchblende – stymied by the artist’s tendency toward drawl musings and “find your bliss” mantras.

Musically, Feelings so stridently sets its own pace, you wish there was a more compelling lyrical piece; Treyfid instead tends to approach the vocals as another instrument, often repeating phrases that work with the constant stomp of bass and drums.  This isn’t a bad thing in itself, but the lyrics are just sort of dumb or hippie enough to be distracting, and thus the few tracks when some lyrics are pieced together that distraction can come close to annoyance.  Those moments are truly far and between, though; mostly you’re dealing with his spoken word repetitions, electronically manipulated or echoed while the production perfectly supports the blend of organic bass and drums and a touch of krautrock.  And while this core dynamic is compelling enough, instituting – from their first notes – several head-bobbing tracks, it’s the slight nuances Treiops adds to these compositions that really makes then stand out.  This could be an extra layer of guitar effects, or a slightly off-time pause; again, though, it ends up making you wish the vocals were equally compelling, or maybe dropped their minimal context and truly just acted as another sound,  end of sentence, no funny business.

In this sense, Unreality is clearly paired against Turing Machine, the math-rock instrumental group that also sprang from Pitchblende, the participants on each side of that split taking particular elements from the parent band.  Treiops went down a more “artistic” road, the music coming across as part of a larger world of visuals and writing and thus somewhat incomplete feeling; the music makes you yearn for something more, but it’s unclear what that more is.

The disc is a worthwhile listen.  Some tracks come across as instant awesomeness, which can further be propped up by the solid and compelling music throughout.  The overall message or feeling of the disc gets muddled by the lyrics, though, and relegates it to an interesting, but not necessarily impactful, listen.