Progression
Magazine Issue #46
99 NAMES
OF GOD: Interwoven
2003 (CD, 56:17); Red Moon Records RMR0302
Style: Progressive rock/Industrial
Sound: 
Composition:
Musicianship: Performance:
Total rating: 16 (scale: 0-16)
On this
album, Mark Cook (guitars, programming), Kris Swenson
(vocals/lyrics/keyboards) and Jason Spradlin (drums and keyboards)
successfully mesh Tangerine Dream-like soundscapes ("Sleeproom"),
thick and bombastic King Crimson art-rock ("Schemata,""The
Logos"), and industrial noose noodling ("Indocile").
99 Names
of God commands a catchy repertoire of hooks and pulsing rhythms
together with an impressionistic scope portrayed by dreamy keyboard
washes and sinuous bass/percussion lines. Like the musical
grandchildren of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, the band percolates
through elegantly geometrical visions, perfectly complemented by
Swenson's Bjork-like vocal performance.
"No
Such Place as Nowhere" features Japanese lyrics, a bubbling disco
pulse and paparazzi samples, contributing to the catholic, truly
international sweep of the entire venture. "All Those
Things" keeps a languid groove traveling through French
folk-music atmospheres and toy synth textures. "Obsolence"
swamps the narrative of Kafka's great story, "The
Metamorphosis," with off-kilter haze guitar and layered beats.
It all
adds up to sophisticated, commercial entertainment with a solid
plumb-line to integrity.
-
Alex S. Johnson, Progression
Magazine
Fort
Worth Weekly January 2004
Album: Interwoven
Fans of crafty,
challenging rock music who've passed on the opportunity to see 99 Names
of God perform (most recently on a number of the Ridglea Theater's great
but under-attended progressive rock nights) have truly missed out. Even
at relatively low volume, the band's stream-of-consciousness sound,
incorporating elements of electronica, can be almost overwhelmingly
intense. On Interwoven, the band's first full-length c.d. since 2000's
Excursions, 99 Names' sonic palette encompasses stately webs of
incandescent guitar fire, edgy electronic grooves, and icy, iconic
vocalismo. Their songs flow together like the soundtracks to dreams.
Mastermind Mark Cook
coaxes sounds that recall the early-'80s edition of King Crimson from
the amazing Warr guitar, an instrument (named for its creator, Mark Warr)
that resembles the flight deck of an aircraft carrier -- kind of like a
Chapman Stick on steroids. On tracks like "Schemata,"
"The Logos," and "Obsolence," Cook produces the
equivalent of both Robert Fripp's architectonic guitar parts and Tony
Levin's undulating bass patterns simultaneously by tapping on the Warr's
dozen or so strings. He also does a nice line in synthesizer
programming.
Jason Spradlin blends
the sounds of his electronic drums with pre-recorded drum loops and
percussion samples, sounding at various times like industrial cacophony,
a Near Eastern marketplace, or a whole tribe of cybernetic African
drummers. And Kris Swenson lays her breathy ice-princess voice atop the
swirling vortex of sound. Overall, it's pretty heady stuff, but what
else would you expect from an Arlington band whose promo schmatter
namechecks William Burroughs and Albert Camus?
-Ken Shimamoto, Fort
Worth Weekly
>> Interwoven:
2003, 99 names of
god
I.
Sleeproom