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Unexpect - Fables Of The Sleepless Empire



8.4 | 258 votes |
Release date: 31 May 2011
Style: Extreme avantgarde metal

Owners:

225 have it
29 want it


01. Unsolved Ideas Of A Distorted Guest
02. Words
03. Orange Vigilantes
04. Mechanical Phoenix
05. The Quantum Symphony
06. Unfed Pendulum
07. In The Mind Of The Last Whale
08. Silence This Parasite
09. A Fading Stance
10. When The Joyful Dead Are Dancing
11. Until Yet A Few More Deaths Do Us Part

Staff review by
Dream Taster
Rating:
8.3
The Montreal-based asylum known as Unexpect broke a 5-year silence after with their new opus Fables From The Sleepless Empire. And the least I can say is that it is a demanding listen. Absolutely insane actually! This is the toughest review I had to write seeing that there is more music to be found on the opening track than on most albums. If any musical label can be applied to these guys, only extreme avant-garde metal would do them somewhat justice. And this is just a snooty way to say I have no clue.

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published 12.11.2011 | Comments (16)

Guest review by
chaosscizzors
Rating:
7.6
It seems like more often than not whenever the band Unexpect is brought up or I share a song from the band that I always seem to get a lot of the same responses; "It's too random and disjointed" or, since we're on the internet, a blatant "THAT WAS SHIT". For quite a while now I haven't been able to wrap my head around why Unexpect would be seen so negatively by metalheads. I remember one person saying something to the effect of "metal written by insane asylum patients" and my immediate thought is "well that sounds pretty damn metal."

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published 14.02.2013 | Comments (4)

Shit got crazy, and I got scared.

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Comments: 76   Visited by: 905 users
28.10.2011 - 00:35
Asunder

Written by Guest on 29.08.2011 at 12:39

I'm probably one of the few morons who really aren't able to appreciate this band.
At first I didn't want to listen to this album because I hated their debut "In A Flesh Aquarium", so knowing exactly what to expect from them (despite their name..) another album would have been a waste of time. Then a friend of mine and some other people told me that this new fantastic album is way better than its predecessor because it's more coherent and something like that, suggesting me to give this band another chance.

Well, guess what... I've managed to listen to the first half, and stopped there. Same chaotic mess, same crushing headache at the end of each song. There are some good moments here and there, but they're totally drowned in this sea of annoying nonsense... Unexpect probably represents everything I hate about "avantgarde metal".

Your brain can only process one thing at a time; it takes many listens to this type of music to begin to appreciate it, especially with a band that makes music so complex. The more going on the more listens it should take to be able to enjoy it all together, cohesively.
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28.10.2011 - 00:44
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
Written by Asunder on 28.10.2011 at 00:35
Your brain can only process one thing at a time

What a terrible assumption. Not everyone who dislikes this kind of music is unable to handle the "complexity" or has trouble processing more than one thing in their mind simultaneously.

People like me happen to think it's just sloppy noise. I can sit and listen and pick apart each piece and analyze it as a whole and every aspect individually and I still just stare blankly into space thinking "how can you like this without being a complete douchebag" and then I come back to Earth and realize people have different tastes in music. It's not always about our musical IQ.
----
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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30.10.2011 - 15:18
malaikat

Written by Troy Killjoy on 28.10.2011 at 00:44

Written by Asunder on 28.10.2011 at 00:35
Your brain can only process one thing at a time

What a terrible assumption. Not everyone who dislikes this kind of music is unable to handle the "complexity" or has trouble processing more than one thing in their mind simultaneously.

People like me happen to think it's just sloppy noise. I can sit and listen and pick apart each piece and analyze it as a whole and every aspect individually and I still just stare blankly into space thinking "how can you like this without being a complete douchebag" and then I come back to Earth and realize people have different tastes in music. It's not always about our musical IQ.


I think he ment "your brain" as in "human brain", the human mind in general.
He has the point imho. When you, for instance, listen to an album like this you can't really focus on it during the first listen because it has like 897234 things going on. After a few spins, when you familiarize yourself with the songs a little more, things start falling in their place, and then can you deduce whether it's good or bad.
For me, this album rocks, but I "figured" that out only after 10 or so spins. On the other hand, "In a Flesh Aquarium" isn't all that good to my ears (it's rather bad) even after multiple listens for over a month.

Bottom line, some albums just require a little more time. It's not an ellitistic statement, it's the fact, some albums just offer something you never heard before (or heard rarely).
Simply put, some people like "the challenge" of a new album, some just want things that are familiar to them. That doesn't mean that one of them has better taste in music than the other and higher "musical IQ", like you said. It's like saying that people who play point&click adventures are universally smarter than the people who play FPS games.
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30.10.2011 - 18:27
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
Written by malaikat on 30.10.2011 at 15:18
explanation

Fair enough. I assumed he was assuming and that never ends with anyone assuming correctly.
----
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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04.11.2011 - 00:10
Asunder

It's fact, brain only process one thing at time.

I was just saying, more complex music is harder to get into, because you can't take in everything happening at once. Once you hear it a few times and get used to the bass, or drums, you can then focus more on the guitars, or vocals, until eventually you understand all the pieces individually and can put them all together at once. You still only process one at a time, but it happens so fast it may seem as though you can actually comprehend 5 different things at once.
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20.11.2011 - 17:25
Rating: 9
NocturnalStalker
Metal Addict
Upon the initial listen I got an impression that this album was more "tame" than the previous works, which made the process of listening to it less enjoyable for me than, say, the process of listening to "In a Flesh Aquarium". But now I can say that this album is also quite wild and with that healthy dose of insanity that makes those restless brains (one of which yours truly just happen to own, or is it vice versa? ) have a kind of an orgasm. While my humble self still values this masterpiece a bit less than its predecessor, I still find it enjoyable enough to take with me on my trip to Hell, or wherever I shall go to, when my soul leaves my flesh (if it will leave it, that is).
Well... I know that I'm not making any sense but it's actually this album's fault. It makes my brain unable to process the thoughts straight.
----
"And we are not who we think we are
We are who we're afraid to be"
- Lux Occulta "The Opening of Eleventh Sephirah"
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16.01.2012 - 07:32
Rating: 10
The Benighted

After taking a good long time to process all of the music from this year, this is certainly one of the best. Top 5 for me, at least. What a tremendous amount of evolution they've shown since 'In A Flesh Aquarium', which in itself was a pretty solid album. Don't know how they'll ever top this.
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Learn to adapt to the change, or get washed away like tears in the rain.
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08.04.2012 - 02:07
Rating: 4
yumishami

Quote:
Well, guess what... I've managed to listen to the first half, and stopped there. Same chaotic mess, same crushing headache at the end of each song. There are some good moments here and there, but they're totally drowned in this sea of annoying nonsense... Unexpect probably represents everything I hate about "avantgarde metal".

same shit happened with me too,Definitely not my stuff...actually i was so confused after listening to first half ,took me 3 tries to spell "shit" correctly...
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17.12.2012 - 23:56
Rating: 10
Unhealer
Eclecticist
Upon checking my old lists for a moment I thought "Did I really pick these weirdos as my favorite album of 2011?". And so today I wanted to give a spin to the record and oh yes, this is fucking fantastic.
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27.07.2013 - 22:21
Rating: 9
mz

Revisiting this album and it gets funnier and better with each spin . I really like how ridiculously chaotic the music is and hope that they release another album in the near future
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Giving my ears a rest from music.
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13.12.2013 - 18:02
Zap
Guest
Written by Troy Killjoy on 30.10.2011 at 18:27

Fair enough. I assumed he was assuming and that never ends with anyone assuming correctly.

To assume is just to make an ass out of you and me anyways.
On a different note, I've had this album a while, and I was never sure whether I loved it or thought it was terrible. It just clicked. Loving this.
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08.07.2015 - 21:46
Rating: 10
Eternity'sChild

Discovered this a bit more than a month ago and I'm just totally impressed by that album. It just hits my taste perfectly, though it was difficult in the beginning to get a clue of certain songs. But once it clicked, I dare say, I got the feeling that it's the best album I've listened to yet. It really has everything I love in music (chaotic but still with a plan, where the song should lead to, great melodies and a great overall performance).
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03.12.2015 - 16:08
Rating: 10
Lethrokai

Goddamnit.

I've always loved this album dearly but recently when I returned to it after about a year, despite expecting my hype for it to have died down over the time similarly to how it does with most albums, instead I found myself even more captured by it.

This album perfectly walks the line between "chaotic" and "careful" without once falling to either side, and the result is an astounding, original and entertaining experience. It has enough consistency to keep you fully engrossed the whole way through yet at the same time maintains upmost originality with each and every track, so the experience is always kept fresh, and demands the listener's attention.

It's weird but great how this album has risen in my mind from a highly original experience which was a bit "much" for my tastes to probably one of the best avant-garde/progressive metal albums of all time.


...But that's why it's also such a shame to know that Unexpect have disbanded and that this is the last we'll hear from them. I was always wondering exactly how they can follow an album like this up with fanatical optimism, but it seems like I won't get an answer.

At the very least, they left on what I'd consider their highest note. It's really a bittersweet thought.

Up to a 10 it goes.
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Sometimes you just need to roll the dice and look away.
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03.12.2015 - 16:25
Darkside Momo
Retired
Written by Lethrokai on 03.12.2015 at 16:08

Goddamnit.

[...]

...But that's why it's also such a shame to know that Unexpect have disbanded [...]

You're just pointing that to me... Didn't know.
Fuck.
At least I enjoyed them while they were still alive, and saw them at Hellfest - even if the sound was bad, I enjoyed it immensely.
Fuck (again).

(back to the record at hand, still can't say if I prefer In A Flesh Aquarium or Fables...)
----
My Author's Blog (in French)


"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you"

"I've lost too many years now
I'm stealing back my soul
I am awake"
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03.12.2015 - 17:05
Rating: 10
Unhealer
Eclecticist
Written by Lethrokai on 03.12.2015 at 16:08

I've always loved this album dearly but recently when I returned to it after about a year, despite expecting my hype for it to have died down over the time similarly to how it does with most albums, instead I found myself even more captured by it.



What a coincidence, I decided to revisit this a few weeks ago as well and I think just the same, didn't even think about changing my score for the album. It's just so damn fun and varied without the songs not being a mess, which is a frequent problem with Flesh Aquarium IMO.

Too bad they disbanded, I didn't know They should continue to make albums and drop the live performances at least.
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20.02.2017 - 06:16
Rating: 7
DeathMetal

Super weird, but I liked it.
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