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Album: "Razing
Eden" (1998) |
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Reviewed by: Darklight Luxt return with their most mature effort yet. All of the things that I complained about on their previous albums seem to have been fixed on this release. They use less distortion on both their music and vocals. Also, guitars are used a lot less and are actually placed into with the music without taking over. Synths are used greatly now as well. The overall sound of the music here is much more electronic than that in the past. There are techno style sound effects combined with keyboard harmonies and drum programming. Everything is energy packed with a touch of darkness combined with aggression. Nothing is slow or boring here. What gives this band its unique edge is the mixture of both male and female vocals. However, female vocals are much more dominant on this release. Once in a while male vocals will join in to add a little more anger to the sound, but the female vocals are what are used the most here. This actually balances out the songs a lot more in my opinion. It keeps everything from sounding the same. That's another thing that I am pleased with here, all of the songs do sound different from each other. While they still fit the same vibe, you can tell one apart from the other. This was something that was quite difficult to do on past Luxt releases. The variety included here is a mixture between aggressive distorted guitar heavy tracks and melodic, dark, haunting, eerie, cold and gothic songs. There are a total of fifteen tracks here that include no instrumentals or filler. However, there are three remixes that I could have done without. Also, there is still a little more distortion used here than I would care for. Anna Christine has a beautiful voice that sounds a lot better when it's not distorted. It's a lot cleaner than it has been in the past, but still not quite as clean as I would like. Erie Loch sounds fine with the little distortion that he uses on his voice because he has a rougher more raw voice. While this album isn't perfect, it's still very good and is easily the best Luxt release so far.
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Album: "Disrepair"
(1997) |
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Reviewed by: Darklight The first thing that I noticed about this album is the heavy distortion on both the vocals and music. This is a problem that I had with Luxt's previous album, and it's also a problem that I have here as well. I will admit that the production of this album is slightly cleaner, but still not as much as I would like. The music and vocals are still distorted, noisy, and scratchy like they were before. The reason that I have a problem with this is because both singers Anna Christine and Erie Loch have good voices that need no distortion. They would actually sound better if they weren't distorted. Also, I noticed that the band is trying more unique things with electronic programming and synth harmonies. Both which are done very well and would sound a lot better if they weren't as distorted. As with most bands in this genre, Luxt has matured a bit since their last release and rocks less and experiments more. This is a good thing. Their earlier work was basically just guitar thrashy electro punk. The songs found here lean more toward an electro industrial sound and don't rely as heavily on guitars. None of the songs on this album are slow, but they tend to have more of a melodic feel to them. They include some variety in them, but still do seem to sound very similar to one another. They feature their own little unique elements, but not enough to make any particular track really stand out and get more attention. On the plus side to this, every song is good. There isn't one that you will want to skip past or ignore. Also, each song features a mixture of both male and female vocals. There are no instrumentals or filler to be found here. The bottom line is that this is a good album. However, I do hope on their next release that they get rid of the distortion, and experiment even more with electronics and synths.
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Album: "Jezabel
Thirteen Three" (1996) |
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Reviewed by: Darklight This album features dark, angry, and aggressive guitar thrashy Cyber-Core music that features female vocals. There are also male vocals here, but the primary vocals are female. The vocals are more distorted than I would like because the singer's have good voices. But this is a minor gripe. Each song on this album is fast paced and energy packed with frantic electronic rhythms and beats. Sampled guitar is thrown into the mix as well to give the music a thrashy edge. I am pleased to say that there is not one slow song, instrumental, or remix to be found here. Each song here is dark and aggressive with vocals. The singing switches between female and male vocals quite often in a song. So it's not as if some songs have female vocals and some have male vocals. They each include the combination of both. This is a very nice touch that is rather original. I don't know why more industrial bands don't do this. My only real complaint with this album is that the recording quality is quite poor. It's fairly scratchy and muffled with a slight amateur sound to it. This combined with the overly distorted vocals detracts from the album a bit. But as I said before, these are minor gripes. Because the good elements definitely outweigh the bad here. Each song is just as good, but do have subtle differences that make them stand out on their own. Nothing here will put you to sleep. This is dance floor and mosh pit music meant for fans of dark, angry, aggressive, and thrashy industrial music.
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