Artist: Gothminister
Title: Utopia
Genre: Gothic Metal / Industrial Metal
Release Date: 17th May 2013
Label: AFM Records/Soulfood
Album Review
Norway’s dark son Bjørn Alexander Brem outlines in the fifth studio album the dual nature of his existence, a lawyer by daytime and a dark entity GOTHMINISTER by night. Cinematic and spectacular ‘Utopia’ certainly shapes up to be. Creepy start to ‘The New Beginning’ justifies the cinematic with the dreamier and complex background to pounding Industrial riffs, with drums at times serving as gun-shot mimicry as in ‘Someone Is After Me’ or the saw-like slow motion riffs in ‘Horroshow’ contrasting with panic and frantic onslaught of them and a schizoid effects of the song in general. It must be commended that the Industrial motifs don’t get repeatedly monotonous as it is sometimes within the trend and really seem to illustrate the songs, further encouraging the description of cinematic character.
Having said that, those that do enjoy that typical hammering of Industrial they’ll still find plenty meaty to chew on here. ‘Utopia’ even comes with a sing-a-long hook that will threaten to throw you down to a dance-floor. The focus of the album becomes at times dissipated through production and the vocals don’t come out as strongly, but these matters don’t take away the fact that this album is great, maybe not as brilliant as the last one was – probably as it’s not as visceral, at least in my opinion, but it’s still a should-get. For fans of the band there is also a DVD with the limited edition to see (not part of this review) which may indeed enhance the experience.
Tracklist
01. The New Beginning
02. Someone Is After Me
03. Utopia
04. March
05. Horrorshow
06. Nightmare
07. Afterlife
08. Helldemon
09. All Alone
10. Purgatory
11. Eternal
12. Raise The Dead
13. Boogeyman
Line-up
Gothminister (Bjørn Alexander Brem) – Vocals
Chris Dead (Christian Svendsen) – Drums
Icarus (Glenn Nilsen) – Guitars
Ketil Eggum – Guitars
Websites
http://www.gothminister.com / https://www.facebook.com/officialgothminister
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8.5
Sound: 9
Total: 8.75 / 10
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