Hard-Wired EBM Review
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Artist
Ad Key
Title
That's It!
Format/Cat
CD ETD 033 CD
Label
Electric Tremor Dessau
Style
old skool EBM
Date of review
23rd November 2010
Reviewer
Carl Jenkinson
Rating
6.5/10
A snappy title for a pretty snappy album. This is the husband & wife duo of Rene & Andrea Nowotny's second album & it treads the same old-skool EBM as its predecessor Thema Nummer Eins. Straight away you know where you are with this one, then &, in reality, apart from Agonoize's hellektro-lite remix of an older track, 'Pour Toi', which ends up sounding uncannily like Painbastard, the 12 original tracks hold few surprises, offering a healthy old skool dose. The duo's main strength, apart from some decently infectious riffs, is their almost knockabout vocal delivery with both of them contributing either simultaneously or on a seemingly ad hoc basis (although it's probably nowhere near as loose as it sounds!) & it works well here on such tracks as the pacey & cheeky 'Pissed Off' & 'Resist' which, thanks to its fuller sound, seems a more substantial offering than most of their output. Likewise, the slower, almost ponderous 'Meine Liebe' makes its mark thanks to its slower pace & some fine synth riffs (& mentioning 'east to west' should cause warm associations among Armageddon Dildoes fans, too!) while, contrastingly, 'Our World Of EBM' is delivered at such a frantic pace, you'll need to catch your breath once it's over! (the 'radio version' which appears as one of the extra tracks is an odd one, though, despite the higher melodic content!). Elsewhere, 'Pornos' & 'Porno-Song' both allow them to add some saucy samples to the mix in an appropriate, if entirely obvious, move &, is it just me or is the backing bass to 'Krank Im Kopf' a ringer for that on Peter Gunn?!!