Duelling keyboards and dancefloor friendly beats? Check. Steady, low toned singing about an assortment of dark and moody topics? Check. The occasional sci-fi sound effect and old movie soundbites? Check. Bit of distort on the vocals and rhythm guitars every now and again? Curious logo and latest cyberfashionwear? Check. Yup, it’s an EMB album. Not quite sure what else to say on this one.
It’s not that Virgins O.R. Pigeons have made a bad album, as it is perfectly listenable and does a good job of what it’s doing, it’s just that it’s not very memorable nor is it really doing anything that exciting with the genre. A couple of tracks have some distinction to them, specifically Born In Sin with its horror styling and Bordello with a nice slice of power-synth, but the rest of it has a lot of ‘sound-a-like’ to them which gets me wanting to cut out the middle-man and put on the stuff the track in question is reminding me of (mostly Apoptygma Berzerk and Grendel, with a touch of FrontLine Assembly and VNV Nation from time to time) . If it was on a compilation CD you wouldn’t be hitting skip and if it came on in a club when you were already up you would stay, but it is unlikely that it would stick in your mind or make you want to find out more. Which is annoying, as there is clearly a skilled band here that could push things and make something good, potentially even great, if only they wouldn't stick to the middle ground and go over tried & tested approaches.
Contains no traces of David Bowie
Contains no traces of David Bowie
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