CD Review - Orbit Service, Songs Of Eta Carinae

Everyone knows never to judge a book by its cover, but your brain tells you several things when you see a black CD cover decorated with a glowing-eyed bird of prey by a band called Orbit Service.

Then your brain tells you several other things after you've see the song titles. Wolves. Asphyxia. A Hallucination. One of these songs is 11 minutes long. Now your brain tells you "Uh-oh!"

But when have you ever listened to your brain, right?

Music can make you do funny things; it can make you wish for a sunny quiet meadow to go and lay in, it can make you want to fall in love, it can make you want to lurch around a sticky-floored club like a drunken goon. Songs Of Eta Carinae by Orbit Service does none of these things. Songs Of Eta Carinae by Orbit Service makes you want to walk up to the band, slap them in the chops and tell them to cheer the fuck up.

From the basis of Songs Of Eta Carinae alone, we get the impression that Orbit Service aren't really the life of the party. In fact, we'd go as far as to suggest that maybe Orbit Service are - you know - a bit miserable. Could it be the song where the singer howls, "The wolves! The devil!"? The song where it rains "like razor sharp blades?" The fact that the entire album is comprised of one big "look, I'm depressing and deep," trick? A mixture of the three?

Perhaps we're writing Orbit Service off too quickly. Take the hilariously self-pitying lyrics out of the equation and you're left with a surprisingly inventive bunch of songs, where loops of backwards guitars meld with trip-hop drums and washes of electronic ambiance alongside the traditional ghost train guitars. But that isn't enough.

Perhaps it's our fault that we didn't get along with Songs Of Eta Carinae. Perhaps because we heard that Jane's Addiction were an influence we were waiting for a Been Caught Stealing or a Just Because to lighten the mood and we were disappointed when it never came. But, judging by the amount of teenage goths we just saw hanging out at the bus shelter, we're certain that Orbit Service have a very large potential audience. But that audience just isn't us. And that makes us a bit depressed.

But not depressed enough to rate this album.

[story by Stuart Heritage]