[Synthwave] Pylot - Shadowtask EP | steemitWAR Weekly Album Review

The emergence of the EDM genre synthwave (sometimes also called new retrowave) can be easily tracked back to its origins in Daft Punk’s work on Tron and the theme music from Stranger Things. This genre is new and exploding with a furious pace, but (at the moment) there are few artist that seem to have a mastery of the sound. Up and coming artist, Pylot is a Monstercat artist that has mastered not only the synthwave sound, but the entire music listening experience on the interactive website iampylot.com.
In this week’s review we dive into “Shadowtask”, Pylot’s five track EP, released in late January of 2017.

The Shadowtask EP is actually #entrysix in the journal entry of the mystery character, Pylot. Journal entries one through five tell the story of a motorcycle riding shadow-figure that has no recollection of his own past or how he came to be in his current circumstances. I highly suggest that you take a half hour to to read through the short journal entries while listening to the other singles that accompany them. Start with #entryone and just click “Next Entry” to cycle through. Each journal entry has some pretty great artwork to go with it. As previously stated, this artist has crafted a fully immersive experience to accompany music that can stand easily on its own.

For #entrysix (Shadowtask) I suggest reading through the entry as it adds to the whole experience. I will not, however, be touching on the contents of the entry in this review and will only be examining the music and the EP as a whole.

Song one of this five part EP is “Caine”. It starts off with the voices of someone trying to get the attention of another, then someone shouting “Hey you!” followed by footsteps as if someone is being chased or gets scared away. For listeners that have no idea about the story or the Pylot character this feels a bit awkward and doesn’t make sense. Luckily immediately after that, the song gets right to business with a screaming guitar riff with an 80’s stadium rock tone that layers perfectly over a walking synth line that almost mirrors the Daft Punk Tron style, but the way the whole thing fits together is completely unique to Pylot.
About 2:50 into the song, we are rescued from what has become a slightly droning chorus-verse ping-ponging, and are hit with a bridge that drives hard enough to makes the listener feel like they doing something completely epic. The clarity of the bass tone in this bridge cuts right through to the foreground and ties the whole song together very nicely.

Skipping forward to Shadowtask’s third song and middle-child of this EP, “Locke”, shows just how well Pylot has mastered this newly emerging genre. The slow tempo and disassociated feel gives a great sense of calm confidence that is quite pleasant. The chorus is beautifully crafted with a simple lead synth line that is too catchy not to get stuck in your head. Once again, we are treated to a very pleasantly surprising bridge that adds complexity to the song that is rare in the genre. The song feels a bit long, but the textures and rhythms are so well crafted that, unless you listen to the song ten straight times, you might be a little disappointed when it is over.

Fourth on the list, and my personal favorite, is “Clova”. It is impossible to land on this track and not immediately reach for the volume knob. The production of this track from the ring on the bass drum, to the clean highs in the guitars, to all of the much needed, but often under appreciated ambient work is hard to beat in this, or any genre. The main bass and guitar lines in this song dance together in a beautiful counterbalance that is hard to explain and should be left to the listener to discover on their own.

The closing track on the album, and EP title track, “Shadowtask” kicks the listener out of the marshmallow chair that they just sunk into during “Clova” with easily the highest BPMs on the EP. This song also brings us our first lyrics in the past half hour. The synth vox are a nice change of pace, even if they don’t add much contextually to the rest of the EP. This song has an unmistakeable Pylot feel that you can’t really find anywhere else. Sadly, and probably intentionally, this song ends far too early, and the listener is left with a seriously well played cliffhanger.

The Verdict

The songwriting, tonal structuring, production, and mastering of this EP put it in a league of its own in not just synthwave, but EDM as a whole. However, due to the disappointingly short play length (what’s that you say, “It’s an EP, it’s supposed to be short!”? I know… I still want more) and a few miss steps towards the start of the EP bring my grade down from an A+ to a B+. This is still a fantastic collection of songs that are very consumable either as a set or sprinkled through your summertime playlists.



If you enjoyed reading this review or just like hearing new music and want to hear more, please let me know. Vote, follow, and resteem! The more feedback I get from readers of my reviews, the better content I will be able to provide.
In previous posts I told everyone to expect several reviews to come out in very short time, but I have now decided to go the other direction and work more on the quality of my content and develop a better presentation before rushing into reviews. When I find something new to try, I will. There is no point in just sitting around thinking about how to get better when I can actually get some practice.

Thanks again, and I hope you all get a chance to get more Pylot in your lives in the near future.