Music Review Archives. Band Stuff. Work Stories in Progress.

Check out some of the ExMogul Music reviews from the archives, below.

I reviewed music on and off for about 15 years, while I took a break from singing and doing gigs.


Now I've flipped that around. And here's my band, SPEED LIMIT 70.


July 3, 2008

Unknown Component


Unknown Component is the one man show also known as Keith Lynch. His newest CD draws on many of Lynch’s influences – which he lists as Radiohead, Dylan, Coldplay, Nirvana, The Beatles, and others.

Lynch’s songs seem to straddle two different vibes: an atmospheric one – almost Pink Floyd meets Coldplay – and a melancholy pop one – Nirvana meets Brett Dennen meets early Beatles.

In the first vibe, “Between Guilt and Relief” features dreamy emotional vocals that seem to highlight to conflicting feelings of walking away from a difficult situation or relationship: “I can see one hundred people like me, one thousand people like me, they’re always walking the streets…in between the thought of guilt and relief, exists a will to believe, it’s always walking the streets… I wrote a note, and it was written with greed, when I spoke, I struggled to breathe…if I show what was never believed, how do I know what is in it for me…” Also in a similar musical vein is “Identifying Interpretation”.

Brought Up to Be Put Down” is a more pop-based tune, with its rough-edged melancholy vocal treatment bringing to mind the voice of Kurt Cobain or Billie Joe Armstrong. On “Into the Sun” the vocals are assertive, and the intended vocal strain adds a nice edge to the tune.

Another strong track is “Retrospectively Speaking,” with a catchy melody, nice use of harmony, and a haunting lyric: “Remember you said you’d be okay, well that was ten years ago today, Remember you said you’d be alright, well that was a decade ago tonight, In a make shift rowboat, the current takes us swiftly down the line, down the line…A rescue mission with blindfolds, a better way to keep this hope alive, down the line.”

Lynch has self-released a great deal of material over the last few years, most of which can be found on his website: http://unknowncomponent.com/.