By Adam Bowman

Sometimes I get a chance to happen across a band that is pretty much getting straight out of the blocks. No record label, no national publicity, just a band that's funded their own CD (which, believe me, gets expensive when it's usually $50/hr. at the lowest) and is working mainly on their own to get exposure. Today, that band is Implant, a four-piece outfit who have obviously been together for an extended period of time, as their music is fairly tight, although it never reaches that level of ultimate technicality, which isn't always a bad thing.

Outside of the solid music, there is a lyrical vocabulary that may leave some listeners in the proverbial dust, examples being "Youthful possessions/cellular regression" in "T.I.O.T.E." and "...send a message to the synapse that will finally collapse/this wary dromedary's back" in, you guessed it, "Wary Dromedary". Before you rush for the dictionary, tough, just listen to everything he says and you'll get what it's all about. Melodically, singer Benedict "Ben-O" Ofstead seems to love the chorus and reverb, because every one of the four songs on this sampler seem to share a watery, all-encompassing feeling. In "Wary Dromedary" and "Ridiculous", though, his melodies work very well, but on the downside, it strikes me the same way Downer did moons ago, as the vocals seem to be two steps above everyone else in the mix. So when the guitarist gets a chance to take a step forward in "Ridiculous", it's money.

The bottom line is that the band is tight, the songs are decent, but could still use a little tweaking in the mixing department. Let the vocals step back and everyone else step forward, and the combination could be enough to send Implant to another studio...only with some serious money backing them.