The Liszt - Slaves

The Liszt is a Dutch rock band that has close ties with Astrosoniq (with two of its members being in both bands). Slaves is their second effort, released through Space Jam Records. Time for some eclectic rock music!

It’s hard to really put this band in one genre, because they work with so many different sounds. The Liszt move between stoner, alternative, pop, noise and post-rock, but they manage to mould all this into a solid whole. Slaves holds some surprises up its sleeve, like for instance the noisy guitar feedback outro in the track ’45 Minutes’, the vocal/piano guest performance by Duffhuës in the track ‘Gold Glitters’ and the spoken word by Brant Bjork in the track ‘Sunny Side’ to name a few.

The overall sound of Slaves is quite relaxed and laidback, yet there are enough moments where heavier rock parts take the upper hand. My main concern is that the sound of this whole album might be a bit too laidback, taking away the power and punch of the louder parts (musically and vocally). It could’ve been a bit more aggressive perhaps, but just only a tad. Nevertheless, when you listen to this album it isn’t hard to notice that the song structures are well thought through and that they’re played by skilled and experienced musicians. Fans of rock that doesn’t place itself between barriers of genres have to give this one a try for sure.