Title: Wavelands
Artist: The SlimP
Genre: Wave
Release Date: 30th January 2009
Label: AF Music / Danse Macabre
Album Review
After a bit of a recollection with ‘Recall 2003-2005’ last year and some more time for THE SLIMP to work in the studio, the long-awaited third album ‘Wavelands’ is being finally released at the end of January 2009.
“And then we passed the gate like a hundred times before.” And through this gate we’re entering the ‘Wavelands’ together with German wave formation THE SLIMP. ‘The Gate’, the actual name of the album opener, drags us right into the mesmerizing sound worlds of this band. Vivid, if not necessarily fast drumming is accompanied here by dirty guitars, and omnipresent bass lines that are slowly meandering towards your auditory channels, getting them infected, so they’ll crave for more. Amidst all this, as always, sounds the signature voice of front woman Elisa Day. With metallic rhythms we’re being led into a barren emotional desert, where a ‘Cold, Cold Sun’ shines, but spends no warmth and the question “Is this the end? Is this my end?” is more than justified here. Guitars are never completely clear, always sounding from somewhere in the distance with a couple off effects occasionally applied on them, giving them rougher edges for instance.
The title track ‘Wavelands’ with its airy and melodic guitar chords, almost sounds happy, just like a walk on a late sunny afternoon or something. Before Elisa covers the composition with a surprisingly light-footed and melodic chant, we can enjoy a long instrumental introduction that’s giving much space to the aforementioned guitar chords while the drums decently remain in the background. This mood makes way for an oppressive, forlorn sound, inhabiting ‘Island Fog’, where the not very cheering melodies leave their respective instruments in slow-motion, gather up to a thick wall of fog, slowly wafting over a forsaken island. The longer I listened to the lyrics of ‘A Hundred Thousand Faces’ the more I felt a relation to ‘The Man of the Crowd’, a tale of Edgar Allen Poe, only here it seems to be linked to the end of a relationship where the face of the person you once loved symbolically reprobates to a grey shadow in a crowd of nameless faces, as a kind of metaphor for the estrangement of those two. The atmosphere radiating from the down-tempo tune is, as you can guess, anything but a happy one and I think it’s quite astonishing how dense the atmospheric network is, they’re weaving with the instruments and vocals.
I had my first encounter with THE SLIMP last year on the ‘Recall 2003-2005’ album I mentioned in the introduction and I thought it was a cool style they have. With the new album they’re making a big leap forward in terms of intensity and songwriting from my point of view. Pieces like ‘Island Fog’ or ‘A Hundred Thousand Faces’ are simply brilliant in their ways. Our optical fetishists are strongly advised to take a look at and especially into the booklet.
Tracklist
01. The Gate – 4:53
02. Cold Cold Sun – 4:12
03. Wavelands – 5:56
04. Hypnosis – 4:00
05. Island Fog – 5:30
06. Lines – 5:30
07. Love and Lie – 3:07
08. Cold Clear Water – 5:14
09. A Hundred Thousand Faces – 6:07
10. Nightly Walk – 4:15
11. Nightmare - Scream Edit – 5:02
Line-up
Elisa Day – Vocals, Bass
Bernd - Guitar
Mart – Bass
Silke – Drums
Website
http://www.theslimp.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/theslimp
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Extras: -
Total: 8 / 10
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