| Reviewed
by: Darklight
I liked Angels & Agony's first release, but felt there
was still some room for improvement. Thankfully, they have completely
polished and refined their sound and style on this excellent follow-up.
They deliver a mix of EBM energy with synth-pop melody. The programming
is nicely developed with appealing sounds, infectious beats and orchestrated
soundscapes. The deep toned male vocals sing with power and passion
unleasing great emotion.
This album offers a good mix of fast paced club tracks and mid-tempo
songs. With seventeen tracks, there's a lot of music here. There are
nice opening and closing instrumentals, as well as a couple of more
experimental instrumental tracks that add variety.
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| Reviewed
by: Darklight
Angels & Agony are a European dark EBM act that deliver a fairly
impressive first effort with this disc. However, they appear to be content
with simply doing things the same way that they have been done so many
times before in this style of music. Hyper layered electro sounds, effects
and beats overlay haunting melodies as thick accented male vocals speak
out the lyrics in a rather dreary tone. While this isn’t necessarily
a bad formula to follow, it has been done quite a lot already. So adding
a little something different to their sound wouldn’t have hurt. But
this is still a very quality release without featuring a single disappointing
track.
There is a good helping of club tracks as well as more melodic pieces
for added variety. Their overall sound is a combination of Assemblage
23 and VNV Nation. But
they’re not quite at the same level as those acts yet in my opinion.
One problem that I have with this CD are the lyrics. They seem somewhat
simple and not very creative. While some are quite well written, most
are rather typical for this style of music which brings them down. Another
problem with this CD is that a lot of the songs sound rather similar
to each other. The entire album follows a pattern and doesn’t stray
away from the initial sound first introduced. So once you’ve heard the
first song here, you pretty much have a good idea what the rest of the
album has to offer. If you really enjoy this style of music this shouldn’t
be a problem, but I personally like a little more variety and diversity
throughout the recordings that I listen to.
The bottom line is that this is a well done dark EBM album with a lot
of enjoyable songs to listen to. But keep in mind that it’s rather typical
for the genre and doesn‘t offer anything new or innovative. You will
have the feeling that you’ve heard it before. But if you’re a huge fan
of this style of music, you should be quite pleased with what this album
has to offer.
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