Artist: 32Crash
Title: Y2112Y
Genre: Electro / Punk
Release Date: 21st October 2011
Label: Alfa Matrix
Album Review
The 32CRASH were formed when Jean-Luc De Meyer (FRONT242) and Len Lemeire and Jan D'Hooghe (IMPLANT) decided to join their forces and investigate and expand different music paths focusing mainly on their own fears of the future. This album is a futuristic saga where meteorites collide with the Earth, aliens invade the space colonies and the time travels are a recreational routine of unknown fare. Though the glimpses of the future are interesting and you’ll enjoy them, especially if you’re interested in the science fiction genre, the CD fails to deliver anything but postcards from the future. Or you get as much as if you’ve played the ‘Doom’ and you want to have insights to an alien civilisation, the human state of affairs and pretty much everything. The things that mattered in this game were the “life” and the “ammo” and in this CD the analogy is to be found in the vocals of Jean-Luc De Meyer (the front man of FRONT242) and in the fast tempos of the songs.
But it isn’t only that; the band mixes an eco-friendly approach with almost Jung-ean based archetypes (or at least their popular conception of that) to describe the future as the eternal battle between good and evil. Monolithic characters and situations are the basis of typical Hollywood’s blockbuster movies but hardly the point of view of artists. More crucially the band fails in raising the question of how the future generations will look upon us. What the historians or the sociologists of the future might write about our times, what the common people might think about us in 100 years; will they see us the way we see the generation just before the WWI? Despite all that I cannot deny that ‘Y2112Y’ delivers an almost guilty pleasure forwarded by the quality of the songs in terms of music and of vocals of course. Either in club terms or even of a live gig, the 32CRASH managed to have fun with their material and to transmit it to the audience. For example they play quite successfully in the ‘Aliens On Earth’ with the BEASTIE BOYS’ “You have to fight (for your right to party)” and the Goth rock version of this song is really striking.
The opening ‘100Y’ sets the tone in its dance and dystopic aspects, while ‘The Man Who Came From Later’ is one of the best songs to be found in this CD. ‘Hyperreal’ could be one of the “hits” of the album with its fast and upbeat electro tone. The only weak moment of the album is ‘Impressionist Piece From Another Planet’ where I feel that more experimentation should have been used. It is a rather simple electronic tune with drones. Maybe the band wants to state that the future will be dumbed down. Granted the 32CRASH knows the Electro and Post Punk as few bands around and in ‘Y2112Y’ effortlessly they prove so. They’ve lost the opportunity to create a quintessential album, yet the results will not disappoint you at all. I think you’ll succumb to the guilty pleasure of dancing and enjoying it as it is.
P.S. As far it concerns the “xn+1=a*xn*(1-xn)”, this sequence represents the Logistic Map and it is one of the simplest examples of chaotic dynamics, initially used for population estimations in the year n. The positive parameter “a” is a combination of reproduction and starvation rates. Extra kudos to the band for mentioning Ilya Prigogine...
Tracklist
01. 100Y – 3:10
02. Aliens On Earth – 3:26
03. Dawning Sun – 3:07
04. What Happened Here – 4:27
05. The Man Who Came From Later – 2:51
06. Into The Hole – 4:07
07. Impressionist Piece From Another Planet – 2:54
08. Hyperreal – 3:24
09. Kryptonically Yours – 4:01
10. Elegy For Himself – 3:19
11. Human Decomposition – 2:34
12. Not Quite Human – 3:17
13. Perpetuum Mobile – 3:38
14. xn+1=a*xn*(1-xn) – 3:16
15. Lasercutter – 1:02
16. The Attack On ZA4 – 4:02
17. Neighbours – 3:24
18. MelangOhlm’s Hit And Run – 4:22
19. A Tiny Foil Of Oil – 4:13
20. The Ol-Lesar Mass – 6:24
Line-up
Jean-Luc De Meyer
Len Lemeire
Jan D'Hooghe
Websites
http://www.32crash.com / https://www.facebook.com/32CRASH
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 9
Total: 8.5 / 10
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