Terra Review: A failed attempt at an experimental concept album

Opinion Piece

Eric Alexandrakis’s most recent album poorly attempts to maintain the theme of travel while mixing genres of music that should never be combined. You are regularly left begging for the song to end.

The album is described as a “cross between early New Wave, late 60’s Psychedelic Pop and Pink Floyd” whereas I would describe it as awful 90’s pop punk, disco and country. Only a few of the songs on the 28-track long album deserve any recognition. The album has very little narrative to it. The style of songs has very little in common. Varying from songs that sound like Stacey’s Mom to something a failing country band would make.

My biggest criticism of the album is how pointless every song is. Even the songs that I like such as My Rainy Day seem to have very little meaning behind the lyrics. As a self-pro-claimed ‘concept’ album, one would expect to be able to understand the meaning of the song’s, yet I was left baffled by each song. Some songs had minimal lyrics which when done well can be very effective however I was often left waiting for the majority of the song for Eric to screech at me through the speaker. The instrumentals of songs also seemed to bare no relevance to anything and were often ruined by unnecessary screeches.

The songs on the album that contained lyrics were often cringey and pointless. I am still confused by Satan’s Fried Scapegoat Breakfast as he spends a majority of the song whining the lyrics. This track sounds particularly like bad hold music. Very rarely do any of the songs have any sort of structure, sometimes this is appropriate however it regularly just frustrated me as it was three minutes of the same endless chord progression. Pain, the album’s longest song, reaching over 7 minutes, seemed to be three separate incomplete song ideas, randomly thrown together with absolutely no effort at a transition.

A lot of the songs on the album I would not even call music, a lot of them were a random mix of sounds with an extortionate amount of effects pointlessly added in order to gain the label ‘experimental’. A lot of the songs sounded like a Year 8 had got their hands on a keyboard in the music room, Open Heart Surgery is a perfect example of this.

The album had quite a few interlude’s which were often just weird and pointless, Turbulence is just some people screaming with what sounds like a failed voice actor pretending to be a pilot over the top.

The only praise that I can give the album is that songs such as My Rainy Day and Mediteranean Sun are fun and nostalgic of 90’s pop punk. The album is also very well produced. Eric is clearly a good musician as songs such as Faith In Avarice (World War Zero) have some really well written parts, however the album regularly ruins them with an overuse of effects.

I do like Eric’s voice, however he attempts to switch and change from a country to a punk rock singer between tracks and it just does not work. It is annoying and makes you start to dislike what could be a quirky and distinct voice.

There is a very loose theme of travel throughout the album with titles of songs referencing planes and the interludes often being sounds you find on public transport. When the song isn’t just a weird combination of sounds and whining, it is boring and lacks any fire to it. Good Girls Never Waltz With Me is a slow, boring and uncomfortable love song. 

I found this album incredibly difficult to listen to as songs that were enjoyable to listen to were far and in between. There is close to no theme on any of the songs and if there is, it is obvious and cringey. The songs are regularly over-crowded with sounds and are often difficult to endure.