Whyzdom
Symphony For a Hopeless God

Mr Delusions of Grandeur is back with his next installation of the work he calls Whyzdom, otherwise known as Vynce Leff. It is a French band/project that uses symphonies and all of that to make grand music that is probably supposed to blow the listeners away. The latest album was good in most regards but it lost all footholds and the creator’s inability to keep things in line and the album got lost in the man’s delusions of grandeur. Symphonies For a Hopeless God is what they call their new album, maybe it is about the Christian god in whose name billions of people are being slain and oppressed. It may also relate to Allah who also has been seeing huge numbers of people being killed in his name. Does that mean that religions are violent? Yes, if you read their holy books they often are but they also talk about forgiveness and stuff, not the extremism that we often see. Maybe that is what they might be referring to with the title of their third album that I hope is more down to earth than the completely lost predecessor.

It is grand music with majestic sound, symphonies and soprano vocals and everything you could desire. The majesty is sometimes breath taking and very impressively produced but the more eagle-eyed viewer would notice that they have replaced the singer. I think the first one must have broken and the model they used must have been discontinued and they had to use something that was not as good, it is like that when what you use is being discontinued – you use what you can get and this alternative is not as good as the previous was. Did I mention that the production I vey good, the soundscape is like a grandiose landscape on a canvas that is painted in majestic strokes. Maybe we should say that it is eleven paintings and they will take you more than one hour to analyse them all. I think that it is a too long playing time and the singer is not as good as the previous one but at the same time you cannot doubt that it is an excellent production in most regards.

And had I been one of all those webzines that gives any record a fantastic rating I would have been throwing superlatives at this album. But I am not one of those and even though this album starts quite brilliantly with great songs it soon looses the concepts just like was the case with the previous album it just ends up in a scene from the mind of someone with a severe case of delusions of grandeur. In many ways this album can be seen as a showcase of what happens when someone who is musically competent and lack self-criticism create a symphony. I thought it started very well but then it got more and more out of hand and what seemed like a high rating ended perilously close to a low rating and I was actually close to give it three points, closer to that than to five points.

The first three songs are excellent and then the album just looses my interest for every second and I am almost ready to throw it in the waste close to its end. Excellent and boring in the same album, I think Mr Leff needs to look in the mirror and start repeating to himself that he is not the god he thinks he is, even though he seems himself as a hopeless god he still suffers from what appears to be mental illness. But seriously, this album will probably appeal to those reviewers who adored their previous albums while us more sensible people will see it for what it is, a musical version of Avatar, lots of great surface but very little of consequence. It is a decent album that fails to reach any higher levels only due to the main man’s lack of self-criticism; will they ever live up to the potential that appears to be there? That is the only impression left with me when I now throw this album into my crapbook’s trashcan.

HHHHHHH