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Album:
"Harmonizer" |
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Reviewed by: Darklight In my opinion, APB’s previous release "Welcome To Earth" was rather disappointing. While offering some great EBM club tracks, it was also flooded with cheesy romantic love ballads and silly quirky experimental filler. It was a very inconsistent album with a poor track layout. So I wasn’t expecting great things from this follow-up. When I first got this CD and looked at the song names, I thought it was going to be crap. Song titles such as "More Serotonin…Please", "Unicorn", "Rollergirl", "O.K. Amp-Let Me Out", "Pikachu", "Detroit Tickets" and "Photoshop Sucks" are extremely silly and don’t give a lot of confidence in being good. Basically, I wasn’t going into this CD with high hopes, but I ended up pleasantly surprised. Track one "More Serotonin…Please" is simply the intro to track two "Suffer In Silence". "Suffer In Silence" is a fun upbeat electro-pop song with cheery singing. While I would usually dislike a song like this, it works because it’s quite catchy and a good way to start things off. Track three "Unicorn" is the best song on this CD. It’s a serious dark and cold EBM song with both Stephan’s deep clear vocals and guest female vocals. Track four "Until The End Of The World" is an energetic techno-pop song with nicely layered programming, driving beats and a sing-along chorus. Stephen sings with power on this track, and there’s even some guitar to make things heavier. Track five "Rollergirl" is a funky mid-tempo electro-pop song with groovy beats and robotically altered vocals. The song turns ambient near the end with orgasmic female moaning that makes me desire a cold shower. Track six "O.K. Amp-Let Me Out" is a straight forward energetic techno song with raw vocals. Even though it’s long and somewhat repetitive, I still enjoy it because it has good beats. Track seven "Pikachu" is a slow laid back mellow synth-pop song with light ambient music, samples of a Japanese woman and Stephen singing with deep emotion. It’s a good relaxing song that comes in at a nice time on the album. Track eight "Spindizzy" is an energy packed EBM song with fast paced programming, solid beats, dramatic melodies, Stephen’s deep and clear singing and enchanting guest female vocals. Track nine "Detroit Tickets" is the mandatory instrumental. It’s funky, dark and dreary with atmospheric ambient music, sparse beats and echo effected samples of people talking. While I don’t really care for it, it’s still not bad enough to skip past. It’s a little longer than it should be, but still works as a good break from the more energetic club tracks offered here. Track ten "Photoshop Sucks" is the worst song here. It’s a two minute slow experimental electro song with spoken lyrics that I can’t make out as being male or female. Track eleven "Something I Should Know" is another one of my favorite songs here. It’s an upbeat, alive and vibrant synth-pop song with grabbing rhythms and beats along with great singing by Stephan and a sing-along chorus. What I like most about this CD is the amount of variety it delivers. A lot of albums sound like the same song is repeated from beginning to end. But each and every track here stands out as being something really different. And I find these songs to be well crafted and entertaining. While tracks such as "More Serotonin…Please", "Suffer In Silence", "Detroit Tickets" and "Photoshop Sucks" do bring down the album a bit, they’re still not bad enough to ruin it. This album definitely isn’t for everyone. If dark, heavy, angry and aggressive electro-industrial music is your thing, stay as far away from this as possible. But if you like a wide variety of different electronic music including EBM, synth-pop and techno, there’s bound to be something here that you will enjoy.
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Album:
"Welcome
to Earth" |
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Reviewed by: Darklight Stephan Groth is back and has delivered another superb Apoptygma Berzerk release for our listening pleasure. While his previous work "7" was somewhat dark and gothic in its overall mood and presentation, "Welcome to Earth" is much more futuristic and sci-fi in its sound. The CD opens with "Everything We Know is Wrong" which is an intro track with spacey sounds and samples of people talking about alien contact. This track blends smoothly into "Starsign" which kicks things into high gear with its fast paced techno beats. Stephan sings clean with a slight growl during the main verse, and melodically for the chorus. This is the first great dance track off the album. Track three "Eclipse" continues the speedy pace with energetic techno beats with a slightly darker edge. Stephan sings deep and emotional on this track giving it a similar sound to Covenant. This is my favorite track on the CD as it's very powerful. Track four "Help Me!" brings the CD to a screeching halt, and ruins the flow of the album. It's a slow funky lounge song with campy lyrics and strange sound samples. It's completely out of place on this CD. Track five "Kathy's Song" is an uplifting electro-pop song with driving drum beats and a soothing rhythm. Track six is a short filler track with samples taken from THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT combined with a laugh track. As with most filler, it's just a waste of space. Track seven "Moment of Tranquility" is a beautiful love song with relaxing melodic synth melodies combined with heart felt singing. Track eight "Fade to Black" gets the CD moving once again with energetic electronic rhythms and beats designed for the dance floor. Stephan unleashes powerful vocal work along with the driving music. Track nine "64K" combines deep bass, tribal drum beats and laser sounds with Stephan's mellow singing. Track ten "Paranoia" is another excellent club track that explodes into dance energy right from the start. The techno beats are relentless and Stephan sings along perfectly as usual. Track eleven "Soultaker" keeps the album moving with more of the same techno dance energy mixing in a lot of drum & bass. Stephan's vocals are slightly distorted here and shout out the lyrics with energy. Track twelve "LNDP 3" is a slow and cold synth song with melodic female vocals. The final track on the CD is "Time to Move On". It's a short ending track with Stephan talking over light ambient music. While I was hoping for more dance tracks, and less slow melodic material, I still feel that this is a high quality CD that should not be missed by people who enjoy clean and polished electronic music.
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Album:
"The Apopcalyptic Manifesto" |
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Reviewed by: Darklight This
is basically the domestic release of Apoptygma Berzerk's 1993 CD "Soli
Deo Gloria" with some added singles and remixes. Since this is released
by Metropolis Records, I was expecting something slightly better. First
of all, one of Apoptygma Berzerk's best songs "Skyscraping" is not here.
But "Deep Red" is here even though it's also on Apoptygma Berzerk's
"7" CD. I could understand if this was a remix of the song, but it's
the same exact version. The added songs included here not found on "Soli
Deo Gloria" include: "APB Goes C-64", "Electronic Warfare", "Lidelsens
Mening", "The Approach Of Death", "Ashes To Ashes (Original 12" Version)",
"Wrack 'Em To Pieces" and "Burning Heretics (Crisp Version)". While
there are a lot of songs delivered here, the order in which they are
given is quite poor. Things jump around from one style to the next so
often that the CD comes off sounding like a disjointed mess of songs
thrown together. There are a lot of quality songs here such as: "Deep
Red", "Bitch", "Stitch", "Spiritual Reality", "Electronic Warfare",
"Burnin' Heretic", "Backdraft", "Ashes To Ashes (Original 12" Version)"
and "Burnin' Heretics (Crisp Version)". But there are a lot of mediocre
tracks as well that include: "APB Goes C-64", "All Tomorrows Parties",
"ARP", "Lidelsens Mening", "Ashes To Ashes (German Slam Version)", "The
Approach Of Death" and "Wrack 'Em To Pieces". So basically half of the
CD is good while the " other half just doesn't quite cut it. If "Skyscraping"
was included here, and a lot of other songs weren't, this CD would have
been a lot better.
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Album:
"7" |
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Reviewed by: Darklight This
album is simply amazing from start to finish. It opens with "Love
Never Dies (part 1)" which is full of emotion. It's kind of a synth-pop
song combined with electronic programming, a choir, and a mixture of
both male and female vocals. It's very alive and could be a great dance
hit. The next song "Mourn" is a melodic but catchy synth-pop
style song with a slight Pet Shop Boys feel to it. The singing is crystal
clear and harmonic and blends with the beautiful music perfectly. Song
three "Non-Stop Violence" has dance hit written all over it.
It's very energetic, upbeat, and catchy with great electronic rhythms
and beats and fantastic singing with a chorus that is simply amazing.
Song four "25 Cromwell St." slows things down a bit and is
very melodic and emotional. It's a dark song that is very pleasant to
listen to. Song five "Rebel" is an instrumental that changes
direction quite often and has a lot of samples. It's a good change of
pace for the album. Song six "Deep Red" is a very heavy, energetic,
and aggressive track that includes slightly distorted vocals that are
joined by female vocals in places and has a dance flavor to it. Song
seven "Nearer" is a melodic romantic love song. It has beautiful
keyboard harmonies with clean singing and female background vocals as
well. Song eight "Half Asleep" picks things up once again
with heavy aggressive energy. The music plays at a very fast pace and
the singing is clean. Song nine "Love Never Dies (part 2)"
is a melodic acoustic version of the song with female vocals singing
the lyrics. It's a great way to end this very powerful and emotional
album.
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Album:
"Soli Deo Gloria" |
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Reviewed by: Darklight This album opens with "Like Blood From The Beloved (part 1)" which is a melodic and very well done keyboard instrumental that kind of gives you an idea right from the start that this is going to be a very quality album. The first song to start things off is "Bitch". It instantly has electronic programming and synths that grab your attention. It's upbeat and has a dance edge to it. The vocals come in and sing great without distortion. There is a very clean sound to this music that almost has a synth-pop edge to it. This is just a taste of what's to come. The next song "Burnin' Heretic" has the same upbeat feel combined with some great eerie style keyboard melodies and slight sampled guitar. It's alive and would be a great dance club song. Song four "Stich" is more dark with a Leaether Strip feel and whispered evil vocals. Song five "Walk With Me" is a short uplifting piano instrumental. Song six "Backdraft" begins with a dark and serious vibe, while vocals sing with a little more anger here. It's a little straight forward, but extremely catchy with a changing chorus. Song seven "Arp" sounds like an 80's synth-pop song. It's a bit funky and comical. I like it because it's different. But it's too short. Song eight "Spiritual Reality" sounds a lot like "Backdraft" with a dark and serious feel to it. But the singing here is a little more high pitched. It's a bit repetitive, but has a catchy chorus. Song nine "Skyscraping" starts off heavy with noisy music and distorted vocals, but then changes directions completely and becomes an energetic fast paced techno style song with angry vocals that growl. Toward the end of the song it goes back to how it originally started. I love the variety found in this song. Song ten "All Tomorrows Parties" is a synth-pop style song with a more uplifting vibe to it. It's a bit too basic and cheerful for my tastes. Song eleven "The Sentinel" is a short dark haunting moody ambient instrumental with samples. Song twelve "Ashes To Ashes" sounds a lot like early Leaether Strip material. It's dark and heavy with fast paced electronic rhythms and beats and screaming distorted vocals. It's a bit straight forward and repetitive, but still a solid aggressive song. Song thirteen "Like Blood From The Beloved (part 2)" ends the album with a beautiful melodic keyboard instrumental. There is a lot of variety to be found on this album, and that's what makes it stand out. Some songs are better than others, but nothing is bad. This is a must for fans of electro industrial music.
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