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Archived Reviews
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French musician Vince Pujol seems to delight in giving his projects tongue-twisting monikers. First there was Electro Synthetic Rebellion & now this, which sees him teaming up with DSBP/Cyber Age Radio/Diverje supremo Tommy Rapisardi to produce a quite excellent album of atmospheric industrial EBM. Pujol's strength has always been his knack of incorporating expansive melodics, expert atmospheric moods & complex arrangements into his albums, mixing them with industrial & abstract effects. This one is no exception, proving its excellence from start to finish & while the concentrated listening that the music requires means it's never likely to attain dancefloor adoration (although the punchier "Escape To Reality" & the funkier "Hybridization" might prove appealing to any DJ brave enough to take a chance!) there's a deeper & longer-lasting satisfaction to be gained by taking the time to fully appreciate the superb melodic lines that are the hallmark of this album, being accompanied by heavily effected vocals on both "Dead Inside" & "Invasion" where they act like an additional musical layer, or the slower, tension-filled "Living Nightmare" which builds from a spooky opening into a mighty & tension-filled cracker. There are so many good tracks here that I could quite easily rave about them all day with "Slow Decay" proving another catchy, impetus-filled piece while "Impulse" retains the album's strong soundtrack-like feel (I'd be very surprised if there isn't a concept of some sort behind this!) with each track sounding like its own short story or a chapter in a robust & rather dark sci-fi novel. It's one of those albums that you find yourself wondering when it's going to come a cropper but the amazing thing is it never does; true, "Introspection" doesn't quite hit the standards that are effortlessly achieved time & time again elsewhere but virtually every EBM band have put their name to worse & this one miniscule blemish does nothing to alter the fact that this is a quite superb album that deserves to be massive so do yourself a favour, then & check this out today, there's no excuse not to & your ears & your mind will both thank you for it. |
