Album review: Watzlawick – Prologue

Paul Watzlawick was a renowned psychologist and philosopher until his death in 2007; the band that have stolen his surname for themselves are a post-metal four-piece (though they label themselves post-rock) from Pisa, Italy – yeah, the place with the tower. The connection between the two isn’t clear from a look at Wikipedia or their press release, but never mind that – what do this self-released outfit sound like? As Prologue kicks off, hypnotic looping figures soaked in echo and reverb give way to epic and beefy drop-D riffs with all the mid-range left in – no slim spare chuggity metal, this, but something more widescreen, the sort of stuff that (when listened to with your eyes shut) makes you think about standing on a cliff above a raging ocean with your arms spread wide as you scream into the wind from the sheer mind-crushing hugeness of the universe…

And you’re back in the room, hopefully left with the not-so-subliminal suggestion that I rather like the cut of Watzlawick‘s jib. Indeed, they sound a fair bit like one of my favourite bands, namely the mighty Amplifier, the biggest-sounding three-piece you’ll ever see play live. They have the same ear for titanic chord changes, subtle shifts from chorus to verse and back again, judicious use of big modulation and delay effects… Luca Cantini even sounds like a more debonair (and less sci-fi obsessed) incarnation of Sel Balamir.

Watzlawick have some surprises in store, however; for example, they throw in a pit-smashing hardcore breakdown (complete with odd time signature) in the middle of “Fade To Blue”, reminding me more than a little bit of Helmet, but then they bring in some synth strings for the latter section, taking you back to that wind-swept cliff-top we mentioned earlier; add in some Keenan-esque drone singing, some low-bandwidth voice-overs a la Long Distance Calling, some shrieking metalcore couplets here and there and a few bright melodies from the lighter end of the post-whatever genres, and there’s plenty to keep your attention. Prologue is as ambitious a record as its title implies, and speaks to me loudly enough that I’ll be watching keenly for the band’s first appearances on these shores.

It’s not all good news, sadly; Prologue is entirely self-produced, and while the actual tones of the instruments are wonderful, it sounds like they’ve overcompressed the entire mix a little too hard. I love a bit of suck-and-squeeze between the guitars and drums on a loud album, but it’s too severe here, cutting into the definition of the riffs and bringing a fading-in-and-out sensation to the vocals, and lessening the impact of songs written by a band who clearly understand dynamics in the context of heavy music. I suspect it was deliberate; I also suspect the mastering process may have interfered with what Watzlawick wanted (try saying that ten times quickly).

But there’s another thing to note about the album as a whole, and that’s the little logo on the digipak sleeve that accompanied my copy: this is a Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial/Share-Alike release, meaning Watzlawick are releasing their stuff out into the aether for anyone to remix or mess around with as they see fit, so long as they credit the originators and don’t make a financial profit from it. There’s a lot of lip-service to the openness of the internet from young bands, but concrete expressions of its embrace such as this one are far rarer. I hope the license encourages people to remix and play Prologue far and wide; it’s a flawed gem of a record from a very promising band.