| Reviewed
by: Darklight
Cut.Rate.Box is the American EBM duo of Clint Sand
and G. Wygonik. Their debut release, New Religion,
sounded like a compilation of songs by different bands as each track
was quite different and several of them included well known European
guest vocalists. But this Dateseed release
is more consistent sticking to a similar style from beginning to end
with only Clint Sand and G. Wygonik doing all of the work.
This CD definitely has an American EBM sound to it. This is mainly due
to the vocals. They’re somewhat high-pitched in their tone and sing
in an alternative rock style. And, unfortunately, I just don’t personally
like this type of singing in electro-industrial/EBM. Also, the lyrics
don’t particularly appeal to me. Again, they seem like lyrics that would
be in alternative rock music.
The music, on the other hand, is quite good. It’s extremely energetic
with a lot of interesting sound layering, tempo changes and driving
beats. It’s mainly straight forward and meant for clubs, and that’s
fine with me. I like good fast paced exciting electronic music which
this indeed is. Unfortunately, the vocals just don’t go with it in my
opinion. Deeper, angrier, raw singing would have definitely been more
fitting.
While most of the songs here follow a similar formula of speedy paced
rhythms and beats, there are a couple of exceptions to the rule. Both
"Enigma" and "Dataseed" are rather dark, cold and
laid back. "Enigma" even features angelic female vocals. These
two songs are nice for variety, and the overall CD would have benefited
from a few more like them.
This album offers nine original tracks and three remixes. Nine original
songs is cutting things a little short in my opinion. There should have
been at least ten, but I still would have preferred more. And since
the remixes aren’t very good, I don’t even really count them as I personally
don’t care to listen to them.
The bottom line is that this CD is highly energetic straight forward
American EBM with manic electronic programming, driving beats and clear
untreated somewhat high-pitched male vocals. It doesn’t really work
for me as I tend to prefer European electro-industrial/EBM with deep
thick accented vocals and dark lyrics. But it’s still good and well
done enough for those who appreciate more of an American industrial
sound.
|
| Reviewed
by: Darklight
I’m
starting to come to the conclusion that Gashed! can’t release a bad
CD. With stellar albums out by bands such as Aghast
View, Assemblage 23,
Concrete Nature and NCC, they don’t have a bad apple in
the bunch, and this Cut.Rate.Box CD just confirms this even more
as it’s a great album as well.
This is a modern release that combines
the clean and energetic rhythms and beats of EBM with the upbeat catchy
melodies and vocals stylings of synth-pop. There are times when angry
and aggressive electro-industrial songs make an appearance as well.
Basically, you get a little bit of everything on this CD, and it all
works.
The music is well programmed with creative effects layering, driving
beats, beautiful synthscapes and clean well sung untreated male vocals.
Every song here is polished and well done with a lot of creativity and
interesting ideas. The band really likes to try different things here,
but still stay in the realm of catchy energetic EBM.
While this two man band proves here that they can completely manage
on their own without any outside help, they did bring aboard several
guest vocalists on this album including Stefan Ackermann, Kurt Harland,
Adrian Hates, Stefan Netschio and Daniel Myer. Having various different
singers on a lot of the songs helps to add variety and diversity to
this overall album. While this does kind of make this CD sound like
a compilation of different bands as opposed to just one band, it works
a lot better than what I’ve heard in the past with similar efforts.
The bottom line is that if you want a high quality electro-industrial/EBM/synth-pop
hybrid album, this would be a good one to get.
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