Pil & Bue - The World Is a Rabbit Hole EP

Pil & Bue - The World Is a Rabbit Hole

3.3

Rating

3.3/5

Flyctory.com Pros

Very good musicians and catching songs
Clear style

Flyctory.com Cons

The weighting of quiet and powerful parts does not work well to me

Guitar riffs from Norway: the duo releases their new album The World Is a Rabbit Hole on 3rd September 2021. Let’s see if the six songs hit a 10 – the band name translates to “Bow & Arrow”.

Pil & Bue – About The Artists

Pil & Bue are a Norwegian rock band. The have been releasing music since 2014. Their debut was called Push Start Button (level 1). In 2016, they added Forget the Past, Let’s Worry about the Future. At that time, Petter Carlsen, who is singer vocalist and baritone guitar player of the band, was joined by drummer Aleksander Kostopoulos. During that era, they also released their likely most well-known track Fire, which has been featured on What Happened To Monday? on Netflix. However, the latter left the band after the second publication, which lead to a hiatus in the project’s history. However, Carlsen found another band mate, so that the story of Pil & Bue as a duo rock band could go on. He is now joined by Goran Johansen.

Pil & Bue – The World Is a Rabbit Hole – Track by Track

The six track album lasts 36 minutes. Despite the low number of songs, it is explicitly named an album.

1. Rube Goldberg Machines

If six tracks make 36 minutes, each song is quite an epic story. Rube Goldberg Machines is the second shortest song on the EP (“just” 5:13 minutes). Not too surprisingly, the song changes its atmosphere. After two minutes of powerful rock and a vocal performance, at which Petter Carlsen slightly reminds me of Tobias Sammet, there is a minute of quiet, almost fragile sounds. The vocals are definitely the most impressive part of the song. Fascinating listen.

2. Everyone’s Just A Kid

Everyone’s A Kid is one of the single releases taken from The World Is A Rabbit Hole already. This second track feels more like one song and does not come with that strong breaks. The guitar riffs are marching forward, Carlsen feels to be the leader of this rock guitar batallion. Especially the instrumental brdige is really good.

3. True Disaster

3:59 minutes – regarding the duration, True Disaster almost feels like mainstream music in this set of long-lasting rock melodies. The powerful parts of this track are not as powerful and hard as in the Rube Goldberg Machine – therefor, the quiet parts are not that quiet as well. Less contrast means a higher potential to have a good and fluent listen in my point of view. I like to listen to this kind of a disaster.

4. Select 2 Players

I was especially curious about this fourth song. After three songs, Pil & Bue have created some sort of signature sound for The World Is a Rabbit Hole – which also means that you just cannot deny certain similarities between the songs. This seven minute track was thus a key track to me: will this long song rather be a boring sound with too many repetitive elements – or a can they create an epic rock track with new-sounding, catching melodies? Listening to Select 2 Players until the end, I can happily stated that I am not tired of Pil & Bue and their 2021 – or at least not yet. Two more to go.

5. The Resonator

The Resonator feels a bit like becoming the power ballad of the EP – but then the song breaks down into very quiet part again. Thus, the song almost feels like three ones. For The Resonator, I feel that the connecting elements between the quiet and the rock part is a bit too thin to me.

6. The World Is A Rabbit Hole

The EP closes with the title track. More than nine minutes ahead of the listener. The song starts very slow and atmospheric. After some two minutes Johansen is happening to join for the first hits on the drum heads. To me, this song does not work out well. There is too few substance in the quiet parts. However, they are so dominant in length compared to the loud parts that the rock elements almost feel disturbing.

Pil & Bue – The World Is a Rabbit Hole – Spotify

Here is The World Is a Rabbit Hole on Spotify:

Pil & Bue – The World Is a Rabbit Hole – My View

I have to admit that I really do struggle with The World Is a Rabbit Hole. There is a lot of creativity and musical talent in this Norwegian duo.The elements of the songs individually are good, but I don’t like how quiet and loud parts are weighted over the song. There are parts which I really enjoy to listen to, but overall, it is average music with above-average talent. I these guys adjust, they can be really good, I guess.