I Forget Myself - Some Err Then Winter (self-released)

I like a good pun, but you have to be careful, you need to be secure in the knowledge that you have the serious musical chops to back it up before you start playing the mirthsome card. But if there is anyone comfortable and confident in their own sonic skin, it has to be I Forget Myself; seven albums in and going from strength to strength.

I Forget Myself might be broadly painted as a hard-rocking concern, but albums such as Some Err Then Winter display the fact that there is a lot more going on than kick-ass tunes and thundering back beats. I mean, there are those too, but it is the deftness and dexterity with which other sounds and styles are added to the mix that makes this album, and the artist in general stand out from the pack.

Tracks such as “Osmanthus” is a prime example the neat, clever, and complex blend of old-school rock classicism and more contemporary, alt-rock attitudes that are brought to bear here. “Seasons Without Song” is a master class in dynamic change, “Erudition” is a swaggering, staccato salvo that pushes through nu-metal sonics and wanders, for a time, on the borders of the industrial sound, and “End of All” is a brooding, coiled song, full of gothic shade and doomed rock sonics.

This is rock music for the modern age, less a post-genre approach and more the sound of all of rock’s sonic strands pulled together in unison. By playing puppet master to those various threads, by making his musical marionette move more one way or another, I Forget Myself makes music that meanders all over rock’s soundscape in a dance built on muscle and melody, power and poignancy, groove and grace, pace and power and ebbs and flows between these attractive opposites at the artist’s bidding.

Has rock and roll just received an upgrade? Absolutely.

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