Nocturnal Deep - Symbiosis

​Nocturnal Deep

​Symbiosis
self-released; 2015

3.0 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

Nocturnal Deep aka Ben Gilbert recently released Symbiosis. Symbiosis is composed mostly on an acoustic guitar but Gilbert occasionally busts out an electric.

The recording quality and production on Symbiosis is in need of serious treatment. To say these songs are even at demo quality would be a compliment. They desperately need to be mastered because the volume from song to song varies greatly. I'm not going to go into detail about the other issues but there are a lot. 

It’s really hard to pinpoint Gilbert’s style but it often sounds like he is just talking rather than singing. Some of the songs are decent while others are quite baffling to as what they even are or what Gilbert was thinking. 

The album starts with “Introduction” which Gilbert plays a distorted electric guitar and then tells a story about a dog. “Church Bells” is a highlight on the EP, which has a decent simple melody. Unfortunately Gilbert goes very off time a number of times in the song, which completely takes away from the songs. He also has a tough time staying in key. “The painter” is about four dbs softer and I am not really sure what was going on with this song since I could barely hear it . “Woozy” has some decent moments but again suffers from timing issues. The song revolves around basic chords and a bit of melancholy.

“Row” is completely baffling and I thought it was a joke. I have nothing else to say about this song. Another song entitled “Icarus” contains barely audible drums and distorted guitar. 

Gilbert has a lot of work ahead of him if he hopes to get a decent fan base. Symbiosis is a scattered album and if anything he should build a base off of ““Church Bells” which is the song that stuck out to me. Hopefully we will some improvement in the recording quality and production next time around.

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