Artist: Alien Hand Syndrome
Title: The Sincere and the Cryptic
Genre: Alternative Rock / Gothic / Industrial
Release Date: 21st October 2011
Label: Echozone
Album Review
The debut album of Vienna based gothic industrial band ALIEN HAND SYNDROME immediately attracted one’s attention. The music is perfectly calm and gentle, the vocals are a bit monotonous and recorded quietly on purpose for better perception, and sometimes the lyrics is spoken or whispered, not sung. Now and then the vocals sound like machine processed but never upgraded. In case where more emotional singing is necessary, the vocals are so mechanical that sound almost like a vinyl scratch but more robust. The atmosphere evidently sends us to art and progressive or some other complex musical phenomena like MOBY and RADIOHEAD.
Second, as follows from the above mentioned the instrumental part is rich in acoustic, which is played not only on digital instruments. Natural piano sounding and acoustic guitars combine with varied drum parties. Other songs are performed purely electro-like - with mid tempo drum machine and diverse keyboard sounding. But still even this diversity can’t be compared with those used by metal bands nowadays, when they unite typically “rock” set of instruments with electronic hues, provided by modern technology. But ALIEN HAND SYNDROME evidently doesn’t move in such a modern direction, feeling that good old gothic rock and early Darkwave grew extremely fashionable and the new life was given to those genres. See what comes out if one mixes up some DEPECHE MODE, THE CURE, adds a bit of DURAN DURAN and sprinkles with THE SISTERS OF MERCY and DREADFUL SHADOWS.
The cocktail sounds familiar but tastes original and is perceived greatly both as a soundtrack to internet browsing and as some relaxing meditative and rather serious work. Finishing my thought, the electro-combination can seem a bit poor (some metal-heads are really more aggressive on this account) and I would rather refer the band to the “live” ones. The audience can vary from DEPECHE MODE fans for example to industrial listeners. Unfortunately, even after considering so many merits and pluses of the record we can hardly name it a masterpiece. There are many bands playing such kind of music and, as we proved above, not only nowadays. The attempt to make some old thing new demands more originality and freshness, but ALIEN HAND SYNDROME lacks this distinctive feature. Sorry to say, but the music easily perceived is doomed to become easily forgotten.
Tracklist
01. Leave Now and Never Come Back – 5:34
02. Raison, Raison – 3:44
03. The Evil and the Lovelorn – 5:09
04. Guernica – 2:56
05. Claret – 4:55
06. A New Day – 5:11
07. Chainsaw Mascara – 3:29
08. Ambien – 4:47
09. The Incredible Whiteness – 4:33
10. Broomstick Jesus – 4:59
Line-up
Clemens Engert
Thorsten Mahr – Live Drums
Emanuel Rudas – Live Guitar
Website
http://www.myspace.com/alien-hand-syndrome
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Extras: -
Total: 8 / 10
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