Because You Love Music

Because You Love Music is an effort by Furtados, the music store chain, to give bands that usually slip under the radar a chance to record and put out their own music while giving them a chance to learn the intricacies of working with a professional studio setup. It’s a noble idea but it does throw up a rather mixed bag of results ”“ there’s definitely some excellent music here but there’s also the odd dubious song that sounds like it fell off a scratch-tape. Kicking off with Mumbai metallers Apollonian Quest, ”˜Labyrinths of Eternal Darkness’ dives headfirst into a melee of blast beats and dark keyboard patches that are uncannily reminiscent of Demonic Resurrection. With shifting tempo changes and some interesting odd-time signatures, the song doesn’t flag despite its five-minute length. Metal finds plenty of representation on the CD as Guillotine’s intriguing ”˜Crave,’ Descarta’s screamcore-laced ”˜Stopping Apocalypse,’ and Chronic Phobia’s slightly uninspired ”˜Kill.Drag.Die.’ The biggest surprises on the album though, are Five8’s insanely groovy ”˜Twenty07,’ a Dream Theatre-meets-Extreme exhortation for change that’s a sheer joy to listen to and The Dodge’s sunshine-drenched rockabilly-styled ”˜Fisherman’s Dream,’ a lesson that sometimes simplicity is all you need to make a song really work. The album falters though, on the mediocre ”˜No TV For Us’ by The Angry Mob and the repetitive riffwork on Sabotage’s ”˜Kill Me.’ But for the most part, this compilation is a fantastic revelation and you’d be well advised to keep an eye on some of these bands because there’s some serious knockout potential here.