Emporium - Gloomy Shadows (track review)

Diverse (definition): Showing a great deal of variety; very different. Emporium’s optimistic record label describe their music using words such as ‘eclectic’, ‘kaleidoscopic’ and most heinously: ‘diverse’.  
 
Many words can be used to describe Emporium but the use of ‘diverse’ genuinely confused me. Don’t get me wrong, if you actually like this song chances are you’ll like their other material. In fact you’ll have over a decade of monotonous music to wade through to your heart’s content. If, however, you require music to stimulate you in some way to get an inkling of enjoyment out of it I’ll recommend you don’t waste your time. 
‘Gloomy Shadows’ shows a shocking lack of creativity. I could excuse this as a minor flop in such a long career if their entire career didn’t sound like a phone call stuck on hold. Due to this, though, I feel like it would be a sensible move to simply hang up the phone and try elsewhere. Because if the sixteen years since the release of their debut album shows us anything, it’s that if anyone was actually interested to begin with they’ve long since forgotten the phone was ringing.

Searching through their back catalogue looking… no… hoping for something to stand out against the beige sea of basic drum beats and repetitive keyboard melodies; I did find the odd song that lured me into the belief that it could be interesting before the familiar vocals slithered in with the same up and down tone of disinterest. Unfortunately, this song in particular has no redeeming features and the disinterested vocals, which simply remind you the song’s still playing when your brain bothers to tune back in, fade out towards the end of the song foreshadowing the fate of a band that unless they actually take a risk and do something drastic for once will fade deeper and deeper into obscurity.

I cannot recommend you buy this song as it’ll only encourage them. Nathan Beck