| Artist |
| Stereomotion |
| Title |
| Stolz Und Demut |
| Format/Cat |
| CD |
| Label |
| Danse Macabre |
| Style |
| Electro |
| Date of review |
| 15th July 2012 |
| Reviewer |
| Carl Jenkinson |
| Rating |
| 7.5/10 |
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I remember Stereomotion’s first album Apocalypse Forever from a few years back being a pleasantly thumpy, if slightly one-dimensional EBM release so, not having heard any of their work since (there’s been one album, I think), I was intrigued as to how Florian Jaeger & Christian Coburger’s music has progressed in the meantime. Given the nature of this release, it was always going to be a varied affair but that doesn’t account for the surprisingly melodic qualities of the one original track, the strong opener ‘Anthem’. Never was a track more appropriately titled as, with its inspiring lyrics & strong, mid-paced rhythms underpinning fine melodics & some good guitar work, it indicates that they’ve come a long way in the intervening period with the ‘club version’ of ‘Forgiven’ & Sleepwalk’s remix of ‘Pride’ both covering similar ground with a surprisingly non-harsh feel in the case of the latter track, the equally melodic feel of which also leaves a wide open goal for Pala-Din to deliver a lively synthpop version with some quaint effects that bring to mind The Beatles making for an intriguing start. Elsewhere it’s a mixed bag of electro styles but most have something going in their favour, be it the initial old-school EBM leanings of ‘French Kiss (Assimiliert Von Retrograd) that are later joined by soaring melodic synth lines & gritty guitars or the hard electro-industrial moods conjured up by Concrete/Rage on their interpretation of ‘In God’s Name’ that Combichrist fans should feel very much at home with while, on a less extreme note, the closing ‘Without You (Forever) delivers a more straightforward EBM experience. The messy, thumpy, crash bang wallop style of ‘Lernen Durch Verlust (Gezugtet Durch Metastat) is the closest this release ever comes to more experimental styles & while it might seem a tad jarring initially it eventually makes some sort of sense & it never gets too heavy going anyway, while Bleeve Effect & Menschliche Energie satisfying the electronica lovers; the former is the less successful of the two, being pleasant enough if a tad overlong although the latter is one of the highlights with interlinking infectious melodic layers making for a zippy little number that’s almost worth the price of admission alone. As it is, though, this is a good value, varied release that never tries to be too experimental or too clever for its own good & should, therefore, appeal to a wide range of electronic music lovers.
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