SYSTEM 22 SUNDOWN ALBUM A DIFFERENT DRUM RELEASE: JULY, 2003 REVIEW: SEPTEMBER 3, 2003

Cody Williams, founder and sole composer of American act System 22, thought it would be nice to work more with regular song structures on this, his second effort in the fullength department. "Sundown" is more straight forward than "Velocity Trip", I'll give him that, but it still leaves me somewhat empty. On the other hand, it might have been too much to ask for Williams to release a strong pop album after having worked almost exclusively within the trance genre before. His previous efforts do still give the album some brushes of contemporary dance music, as the beat varies a great deal generally. Trip hop, techno and a rock laden attitude host most of the tracks, but none of it really speaks to me. An improvement, however, is the extended use of Chrissy Franklin's vocals. Not only does her singing fit the mood of the music, she is also pretty damn cute...
Maybe next time we will hear an album with, much needed, stronger song writing and more of an edge to the sounds. Plus for efforts, though.

NIKLAS FORSBERG