incarnadine
Reviewed by: Alastair Collins
Published: 15 April 2011
single: murder town
The music industry, as much as any other, is experiencing major changes due to the low cost and highly effective recording, production and distribution technologies that digital media has made available. The changes are ongoing and will be for some time, as the industry starts to shed outdated and unnecessary concepts and starts to find its feet in the new digital frontier.
One of the concepts that has changed the most is the ‘single’. However, singles were never released for the sake of releasing singles; they were either an advertisement for an upcoming album or a stop gap measure to maintain market interest in a band that was in between albums.
In the new industry where the idea of a band taking their time between albums is almost unheard of and almost any track on any album can be previewed instantly through web-streaming or simply bought on its own for a small fee, the idea of releasing a physical CD with one or two songs on it is becoming entirely outdated and uneconomical for the band themselves.
Why spend the money on a physical release when it’s easier and cheaper for everyone to make a track available online for free or for a small price, which has the added advantage of being easy for people to pass on, which generates market awareness and buzz for the band.
Incarnadine’s latest single, Murder Town, is being released as a one track single and it’s not the first single this band has released. Economically, these kinds of releases make little sense compared to the other options available. I’d recommend that they stop with singles altogether until they are promoting a full album, make their next release an EP, but before even recording it, concentrating on creating a strong web presence for themselves, away from Myspace. Yes, it will be costly, but the potential benefits of unlocking a worldwide fan base far outweigh the potential financial risk, particularly when compared to releasing songs one by one.
The song itself is strong and no nonsense, it has a good rhythm, good style and shows some great potential for the band. Perhaps a little more attention could be paid to the drum line, which strikes me as a little unimaginative. As it is, it doesn’t detract from the song, but in such a heavily rhythmic song, the drummer could do some subtle, but impressive, fills and have a little fun with it. Similarly, the guitar lines at times seem a little static in their rhythmic approach.
Mixing of the song is a little treble heavy, but it’s only a minor complaint and certainly doesn’t affect the song at all. The recording quality is very high, which is to be expected since it was recorded, mixed and mastered by the good folk at Fat Trax and Disk-Edits.
Incarnadine certainly seem to know what they’re doing in their music, but might want to look in to getting some assistance with their marketing strategy.
