Artist: Preverse
Title: Obstacles
Genre: Electro rock
Release Date: 25th April 2014
Label: Nyx Records
Album Review
Always interesting to see how a band chooses to describe itself. German five-piece PREVERSE go for this rather weighty dictionary gobbling mission statement: “It is telling a story of unfulfilled longings and dreams as well as the burden of feeling obliged to find a compromise where none is permitted. Born in pain, but not necessarily intoned painfully. Five individuals having built a fragile cosmos of individuality and compromise“. Not entirely sure what any of that means, but it sounds worthy enough.
Things get going with ‘No Faith In My God‘, bleeps and keyboards and some sinister guitars creating some depth for the rather bland vocals to sit in. Good chorus, although this is standard electro-rock really, following a tried and tested formula and delivering what you’d expect rather than what you want. ‘Trace Of Water‘ suffers slightly from a reedy vocal but is a pacy enough pop song, and again, it rescues itself from drowning by having an instantly memorable chorus. An increase in gallop and some nicely icy synth breaks makes ’Truth Hurts‘ a standout song here, it’s dancey and punchy. And the chorus? Yep, it’s good, very good. But after this opening trio, things start to waver.
There’s an almost DIE FORM menace at work in the verses of ’Rubbertears‘ but it doesn’t last, and this descends rapidly into a dreadful mess that only a school band would be proud of. ‘Bringing Me Home‘ is slightly better, but it’s still firmly playing it safe and steady, a pleasant enough ditty, trundling happily along on a thin melody. And ‘World Of Lemons‘? With such a horrible title it does make it difficult to take things seriously. ’The Feeling Is Back‘ sounds more numb than anything, flapping around flaccidly, which just leaves last song ’My Shadow Has A Gun‘. Oh dear. A police siren start, and chugging doom-laden guitars over a stomp of a beat promises much, but the chorus is simply awful, and clearly all the best ones were used up in the first three songs on ’Obstacles‘. Perhaps an EP would have been better.
This is not a bad album necessarily, but it’s not a good one either. Moments of pop-perfection and danceable, formulaic electro-rock, give way to sub-standard songwriting at times, a clear lack of ideas, and a slightly tired feeling throughout as though they are seeing what they can get away with, rather than pushing for something truly special. Not sure that mission statement is entirely accurate then.
Tracklist
01. No Faith In My God
02. Trace Of Water
03. Truth Hurts
04. Rubbertears
05. Bringing Me Home
06. Black Tender
07. World Of Lemons
08. Goddess Of Seduction
09. The Feeling Is Back
10. My Shadow Has A Gun
11. Truth Hurts remix
Line-up
Kai
Dae Joon
Andreas
Neila Fynn
Hilger
Website
https://www.facebook.com/preverse / http://www.nyx-records.com/preverse
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 5
Sound: 8
Total: 6.5 / 10
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