''Original Machines'' is the debut solo album by

Conrad Keely Conrad Keely (born 15 May 1972) is a musician, artist, and writer known primarily as the lead singer for the American rock band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Background Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England of Irish and Thai ...

, primary singer and songwriter of

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-based rock band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. ''Original Machines'' was released worldwide on January 22, 2016, on

Superball Music Superball Music is a German independent record label. Launched on October 1, 2007, the label is still active, as of April 2024. It has previously partnered with Century Media Records and EMI. History Superball has attracted significant attenti ...

. The third track from the album, "In Words of a Not So Famous Man," was released streaming on the internet by Superball on November 12, 2015.

Background

''Original Machines'' is the first solo album by Keely after twenty-two years and nine studio albums with ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, the last Trail of Dead album prior to ''Original Machines'' is 2014's '' IX.'' The songs for ''Original Machines'' were primarily written while traveling in

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

after Keely moved to

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Cambodia, most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since 1865 and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its political, economic, industr ...

in 2012, but a few were written while on tour with ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, recording demos in the back of the tour bus. Keely relocated to Cambodia after being "fed up with American life." Although Keely does not speak Cambodian, he says the country is "a noisy place full of weird sounds – temples, monks chanting, loud speakers blaring, egg sellers and vendors. I need that chaos, and I think it helps that it’s in a language I don’t understand." On the sound of his first work without the band, while speaking with Steve Bell of Australia's ''The Music'', Keely said that he was "given more freedom to explore other textures and stuff that I might not usually" while having "the liberty to create something that's outside of rail of Dead'srock paradigm."

Critical reception

''Original Machines'' received a "

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" score of 67 out of 100 on music review aggregation site

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, indicating "generally favorable reviews" based on five publications. A critic from ''Q'' magazine enjoyed the variety in the 24 tracks on the album, saying "What sounds antagonistic in premise actually proves to be a brilliant odyssey through the eclectic backwaters of Keely's imagination." A writer from ''

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'' agreed, calling the album a "pleasingly dizzying, yet curiously coherent." Stephen Ackroyd of ''Upset'' magazine supported this as well, saying "each

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is a polished gem – never left long enough to outstay its welcome." JR Morgan from ''Under the Radar'' disagreed, saying that at 24 tracks the album "is an overwhelming and inconsistent listen; less a professionally-minded album, per se, than a sheer outpouring of the entire Keely vault," stating critically that "there are also several slick and seemingly full-fledged pieces that could've been packaged together, cut free of the slackerly baggage, and moulded into a more pristine collection that might not resemble a hastily-compiled posthumous release." A critic from ''

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'' supported this criticism, saying that the listener "can hear where eely'sheading with ideas, but, for the most part, these are more sketches than fully-formed songs."

Track listing

References

{{Authority control 2016 debut albums Superball Music albums Conrad Keely albums