Neelix - No Way To Leave

No Way To Leave is the second album release from up and coming German progressive artist Henrik Twardzik, known as Neelix. I picked it up without looking into it too deeply after enjoying several of his compilation appearances in the previous year. Intact, The One, and Relict are all decent songs with a unique sort of character. Neelix has an appealing style that sits in the saddle between full-on energy and deeper progressive. His beats carry a great deal of punch, and the percussion will keep you dancing, while the melodies tend to have an emotional quality with an almost retro feel. If one were to try and find some common ground between FREq and Symphonix, it might sound something vaguely like this.

Side B opens the album with a solid chunky groove, laced with snappy tribal drumwork. The atmosphere is bright and melodious, with layers of synthetic pads building a substantial mood. A few male and female vocals are used to good effect, giving this one a mild epic quality, an impression which is surely strengthened by bass line shifts following the mid-point break. The big leads finally deliver in the last third, topping this track off with a powerful conclusion. It’s nothing refreshingly original or stunningly creative, but this first song is a representative example of the better side of this artist’s production.

The Next begins to display the album’s fundamental flaw. The song itself is nice, showing off the usual snappy progressive melodic style that Neelix is known for. There are some gorgeous leads right in the heart of the song that build nicely into what could have been a very emotional high. Unfortunatly there is a completely inexcusable use of sampling here. The phrase “from the weird to the insane” is repeated no less than fifty times, in a man’s voice that you may come to loathe as you listen through the album. This is the first of several spoiled songs.

Think of Me shows vague promise with another sticky beat assembly, and while it doesn’t make a huge impression the first half is decent enough for this style of progressive. What hope there may have been evaporates with the ugly sounds in the bridge, sadly. The last minutes have a few stunning melodic flourishes, but nothing quite overrides the poor impression obtained from the guttural sample work throughout parts of the track.

The title track has more overbearing male vocals, repeated dozens of time. I’m no longer going to count. The song is completely ruined.

Complication dabbles around with plenty of cut-up spoken word samples but manages to avoid winning an automatic disqualification by doing something vaguely interesting with them. After spending four minutes fiddling with filters and effects, a simple melody finally appears. It never really grows any more substantial than that however, making this a dull and vacuous tune easy to overlook.

Follow begins on an alarming note, as repeating samples introduce another punchy rhythm. There’s something of an old German trance feel to this one, with encouraging samples shouting “come on,” “follow the bouncing bass,” and “enjoy this trip.” With my empty-headed sample tolerance completely depleted, it’s tough to get into this, but I’ll admit it sound better than the last bunch. A late diversion into funky rhythms sure helps to keep this mildly interesting and at least a little distinct.

Of Nine tones it down, resorting to a straight lounge atmosphere that delicately develops a sensual sort of groove with plenty of detailed sound textures. Slight voices lurk in the background, accentuated by some mysterious acoustic sounds. The song isn’t nearly as direct as the rest, preferring to layer up subtle elements in a much more clandestine fashion. There’s something of a Phony Orphants influence in this piece, though it isn’t nearly as good as the work on their last album. Nonetheless, this is what I was hoping for with this album – a new development in the artist’s style. I deem it to be a highlight.

Rien Ne Va Plus is another otherwise decent track that becomes intolerably infested with bad male vocals. It’s all right until the last few minutes, during which the phrase “playin’ games” is repeated countless times. Awful!

The Second finishes the album without advancing the concept or sound any further. There simply isn’t anything different going on here, making it sound like one of the artist’s more ordinary productions. At least it avoids the vocal trappings that plague the rest of it, but this is neither a commendable exposition of his melodic style as with the first track, nor an interesting evolution of the style as with Of Nine. That being said, it’s okay, though it’s something of a let-down as the last track on this lacklustre release.

Ultimately this is a deeply flawed album. The music could have been a little above average, but so much poor sample work utterly devestates the artistic merit of the release. If for some reason you actually like pointless phrases repeated dozens of times over and over again, perhaps you can forgive this approach and really get into the tunes. There is an over-riding concept at work here, even if it is poorly expressed. A superficial exploration of relationship dynamics is best suited for pop music, not psytrance. Even then, an artist usually has a little more to say than what can be gleaned from this particular story. There are a couple of songs that might be worth salvaging, but one may just as well wait for a solid compilation featuring some fresh material from Neelix if you’re into his style. Very disappointing.

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