Artist: Biomekkanik
Title: Violently Beautiful
Genre: Synth Pop
Release Date: 16th January 2014
Label: Danse Macabre
Album Review
‘Violently Beautiful’ is the second album by Swedish three-piece BIOMEKKANIK, a spirited jump through a variety of electronic musical hoops, but assured and full of purpose. There is much drivel produced in and around the so-called synth-pop genre, so it is hugely refreshing to hear some genuine talent and ambition based on experience, and a quiet confidence in the actual song-writing that lets everything breathe in a natural and organic way. It’s good stuff. ‘Monumental Me’ gets the pulse racing from the off. With furious industrial pounding, it heads straight for the dance-floor and refuses to budge. ‘True Believers’ follows, capturing the dark tunefulness of early COVENANT, swaying and swaggering about the room and pointing to itself saying “Aren’t I just damn awesome?”. And yes, indeed you are.
The world could probably do without ‘Kamikaze Playboy’, but once the title track clicks and slinks itself into your consciousness it won’t matter. It’s wonderfully sung, there’s something of DEPECHE MODE in there, and it has a menacing build-up to a towering chorus. Then there’s the gorgeous future-pop of ‘Long Forgotten Future’, with its passionately strained vocals and perfectly placed guitars, the sing-along ‘Melancholy Friend’ which is TALK TALK and FICTION FACTORY reformed and joining forces, and the industrial thump of the frankly fabulous ‘Leather And Steel’. Things don’t slack off either. The eastern-tinged ‘Democracy’ is another dance-floor pounder, jittery and paranoid, twitching in its eagerness “to come and teach you democracy”. And closing track ‘Dry Dusty Ground’ is fragile and beautiful, a wonderfully melancholy piece. It yearns and wrings its hands, trying desperately not to cry. But let it go, I say, this is proper music to weep to.
The real success of this album, is the amount of space the band have left for themselves. Without spreading themselves too thinly, they have mastered a variety of styles and sub-genres to create a perfectly formed whole, with further explorations and refining of their sound absolutely possible. You feel this is a band only just beginning to stretch themselves. When they really go for it, there could be magic.
Tracklist
01. Monumental Me
02. True Believers
03. Kamikaze Playboy
04. Violently Beautiful
05. Long Forgotten Future
06. White World
07. Melancholy Friend
08. Leather And Steel
09. Democracy
10. Dry Dusty Ground
Line-up
Christer Hermodsson
Andreas Ingefjord
Mattias Johansson
Website
https://www.facebook.com/pages/BIOMEKKANIK/103373558834
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8 / 10
Comments powered by CComment