Double Helix - The Butterfly Effect

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Artist:	Double Helix
Title:	The Butterfly Effect
Label:	Seventh Star 7SS 031
Length(s):	73 minutes
Year(s) of release:	2000
Month of review:	10/2000

Line up

Jill Arroway - keyboards, vocals, sequencing
Sandy Leigh - keyboards, vocals
and quite a guest vocalists.

Tracks

1)	Perchance To Dream	2.50
2)	It Doesn't Scan	3.49
3)	Will You Walk With Me?	4.02
4)	Disconnect	4.07
5)	Surround Sound	4.32
6)	The Seventh Star	6.43
7)	Synthaesia	4.04
8)	Android Rising	2.44
9)	Merci, Mon Amie	7.24
10)	Watch The Code: HPG2000	3.55
11)	QED	5.03
12)	Vengeance Is Mine	4.58
13)	Garibaldi (part 6 Of Insanity)	2.43
14)	Legendary Hero	5.01
15)	I Am Me	4.43
16)	Entelechy (part 1 Of Three Finest Moments)	3.27
17)	The Realisation Of Dreams	3.37

Summary

After a single, Watch The Code, which I did not like, the duo returns with a complete album. As always a love of mathematics and science speaks from their titles and lyrics.

The music

Keyboards and mechanical percussion are besides the vocals the only sounds you'll hear here. On the whole it makes for a very thin sound, and the production does not help much either. The keyboards that are used are certainly not used in any bombastic fashion. The songs themselves are simply songs (no epics or ambientish stuff), so the focus comes on the vocals (except in the instrumental Garibaldi). The vocals are not always good. Both members do sing (yet I do not really know at this point who is who), but one of them has a voice I do not like (the one opening Disconnect, I think this is Jill Arroway). Perchance To Dream is a thin sounding track with loads of lyrics. The next one is much better, especially the melody of the chorus. The music here might remind some of mideighties Tangerine Dream and the music has quite a lot of sequencing and gets to be quite dark at times. Will You Walk With Me? I again do not like. The melody is not interesting, the singing is not good, there's some complexity in the harmony singing, but I don't like the result myself. The music has something harpsichordish and also features some synthetic flute and piano making for a light classical sound. Disconnect then with high pitched vocals (the ones I do not like), but there are a few nice melodies in this one, between the verse and the chorus for instance. The vocal melody is bit too simple though. The intermezzo has some quick waltzy piano playing. Surround Sound then uses lower pitched sounds and more active percussion. In fact, the music is riddled with rhythm. The vocals have some influences by Jon Anderson, but the singing is definitely not good. The songs has quite some fiddling about with a prominence on bass sounds. The Seventh Star with its 6.43 the longest track on this disc is divided into no less than seven parts. Part one is a somewhat classical sounding introduction, the second part being the repetition of the title of the track. The third part is a neurotic passage with the percussive sounds dominating the vocal part. The middle passage is a drum solo (of some kind). After this small SF story we come to Synthaseia where we have a new singer Jamie Marton. She has a somewhat classical voice (reminds me of Andy Bell in Hammill's Usher) and sings quite clearly. The music is mostly percussion and piano giving a very rhythmic sound. Android Rising has a straightforward chorus, but I kind of like it. A tranquil piece. Merci Mon Ami is a long track in French (nothing wrong with that), that to my feeling is terrible (sorry Jill). Although you might know from my review of the single Watch The Code that I do not think that much of it, it is much better than its predecessor. QED, something usually stated after the proof of a theorem is completed, stating its completeness, is the eleventh track so far. Not much knew on this track. Venegance Is Mine opens with poppy sounds with disjointed sounding keyboards to be contrasted with the vocal lines, that are much more melodic. Actually the twiddly keyboards take on a life of their own. The instrumental middle part becomes positively menacing before it turns back into the dribble of keyboard sounds. Garibaldi is a small instrumental a jumble of sounds and tunes. Legendary Hero is a terribly simple poppy tune. Tranquility returns on I Am Me with its flute like sounds. Entelechy is more interesting being a slow up-tempo piece (meaning in this case that the music goes quite slowly, but the singing is rather fast). I like the vocal melody here and also the way it is sung. The final track The Realisation Of Dreams is a kind of title track making reference to the butterfly effect.

Nice artwork.

Conclusion

This is not an album I can recommend. The music often sounds thin, they use too many synthetic stuffs making for a both a thin and mechanical sound, the production is not very good and I don't like a large part of the vocals. A few nice melodies here and there (It Doesn't Scan, Android Rising), but songs like Merci, Mon Ami I have a hard time listening to.