Recover The Satellite - ​Fiction

Recover The Satellite

​Fiction
self-released; 2015

3.4 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

Daniel Knight aka Recover The Satellite recently released an album entitled Fiction, which has been in the works for about the last five years. It’s an instrumental album that basically revolves around the guitar that is backed by drums and bass. Knight dabbles in a bit of post-rock, metal, rock and some other sub-genres. It’s a good eclectic mix that left me engaged.

None of the songs arch the three-minute mark and some of the songs felt like they could have easily gone passed that. I’m not sure if Knight just ran out of ideas or just wanted to make the album feel like one piece. I have to say I felt it worked better as one long piece of music because the songs felt like they needed the other songs to work. 

Knight recorded this album DIY style and I was impressed by what I heard. The guitars and bass sound great. Knight used MIDI drums and I can still hear when the drums are programmed opposed to a person playing behind a kit. Although I would have liked to hear an actual person Knight does a good enough job programming that he was able to get away with it.

The album opens with “The Journey Home” where Knight flexes some of his technical muscles on the electric guitar. There are some post-rock elements to the song but also some Joe Satriani type lead work, which gave it an interesting vibe, It reminded me a bit of Deafheaven. It feels like a meaty song compared to some of the other ones. 

Next up is “The Show” which establishes a great groove but doesn’t go anywhere. It rides for about two minutes before fading out. “The Fix” is an intense melting stew of guitar that goes on for about two minutes and that also happens to fade out into “Fiction.” “Fiction” certainly has elements of bands like Explosions In The Sky. “Isn’t Really Fiction At All” felt like a transition piece that goes into another transition piece called “Breathe.” He closes with a familiar mellow post-rock piece called “Little Bear.”

There is a nice flow to Fiction from the beginning to the end and that is the strongest aspect on this album. A number of the songs simply are not fleshed out enough to stand on their own. Knight has some talent but it feels as if there might be more there. If you are going to listen to Fiction I would press play on the first song and listen till the whole album is over.

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