Hybridcore - Aesthetische

Remember when Industrial / EBM was fresh, exciting, and full of possibility? When the idea of a dark edged dance-music that would get you to put your hands in the air and be on the dancefloor all night was still something new? Aesthetische do, and their latest album, Hybridcore, is here to make your life a better place. Filled to the brim with everything good and wonderful about early FrontLine Assembly, Nitzer Ebb, and the like (good solid dance tracks with meaty electronic sounds, dark foreboding and themes) but also picking up on trance, house, and clubber anthemics. It has power, it has melody, it has hooks big enough for whale-fishing: what more could you want? How about it's two key members being ex Aghast View members, giving it a pedigree and them working with a range of singers to bring in a depth to the vocals that most bands fail to get over a series of albums.

Highlights for the album are the clubtastic "The Light Within", the opener "Wall of Illusions" (which is a dead-ringer for a Frontline Assembly track in a good way), the banging "Amplitude Zero", "Statement" with the sound of a pissed off VNV Nation, and the cheeky "Twisted Volt" which has a rather nifty new romantics keyboard line going thought it. Not to say that it's backwards looking or a rewrite of old favorites, just that it's a sound which knows where it's roots are and doesn't mind revisiting the classics as long as it can put a modern twist on them. The sounds aren't going to start a revolution, but the quality could. It's dark, it's edgy, it's sexy, and if you want to get hot and sweaty in a nightclub that's what you really need.