Invincible Spirit, The - Push! EP

Album Review

Infacted Recordings have a nice series with re-releases of EBM cult classics as EPs with lots of bonus stuff. ‘Push!’ is the fourth release in this series, and like the other related releases it has a lot to offer! THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT is the solo project of Thomas Lüdke from Dortmund, who began releasing music with his first band THE INVISIBLE LIMITS in 1985. He wrote the songs ‘Devil Dance’ and ‘Love is a Kind of Mystery’ - classics in their own right - for THE INVISIBLE LIMITS but left the band soon to create his own vision of dark, aggressive Electro under the moniker THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT, while his former band directed towards a much poppier sound with female vocals.

‘Push!’ was the first release of THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT and an instant club hit in 1986. And it is still a club hit in the Goth scene and even today almost everyone will recognize the trademark bass line of ‘Push!’ in no time. As the former labels of THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT, Last Chance and ZYX, are both history for many years now a re-release of this classic was truly overdue. Infacted's EP starts with the original version of ‘Push!’, a 7-minute monster of a song. Even in 2009 you can see easily why this track had such an impact 23 years ago, it's not just danceable and has a great hook; it pushed the borders of EBM and Dark Electro. In the long run ‘Push!’ has been one of the standout tracks which directly or indirectly influenced modern day Electro acts like HOCICO or AGONOIZE. The EP features four versions of this song, alongside a rework from 1990 (somewhat smoother and more polished) also two live versions. The first one, recorded 1990 in Hagen, sounds rather horrible, unfortunately, and sounds like an audience recording taken from some bootleg. The bad sound quality really ruins it. The second live version, recorded 1999 in Gothenburg, is all the better. A completely different take on the song which nevertheless still has the power of the original!

The 11-track EP of course has much more to offer than different versions of the main track. Another highlight is surely ‘Devil Dance’, which Thomas Lüdke re-recorded for THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT with PHILLIP BOA on the guitar. The original bonus tracks of the first ‘Push!’ release are also in the track list. ‘The Accomplishment’ is a dark but groovy track which has “eighties” written all over it, but that's part of its charm. ‘Wasted Time’ resembles influences of New Wave / Post-Punk bands like BAUHAUS or JOY DIVISION and puts them in an electronic context. ‘Archie is dead’ is just a short instrumental, nice but probably only featured for the sake of completion. To my delight the 7”-only track ‘Locate a Stranger’ is also to be found on this EP, as well as the high-speed Electro Punk of ‘Make a Device’. Both tracks show that THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT always had more to offer than one or two club anthems. Last but not least there's also a demo recording from 1994, self-ironically titled ‘The Invincible Rat’. A stand-out track in some regards, as it has a quite different sound compared to the other tracks with its heavily distorted vocals and noisy beats. Add a bit more Techno to this song and you'd have a fine Hellectro track which wouldn't sound alien on a HOCICO record.

The ‘Push!’ EP is a great re-release for sure which has a lot to offer for old and new fans. The live version from Hagen feels a bit out of place and should have been replaced with another THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT classic - perhaps ‘Provoke You’ or ‘ContacT’ - but with 11-tracks for the price of a normal CD-single there's nothing to complain about in the end.


Tracklist

01 Push! (Original 1986)
02 The Accomplishment
03 Wasted Time
04 Devil Dance
05 Push! (1990 New Version)
06 Make a device
07 The Invincible Rat (Demo 1994)
08 Push! (Live Hagen 1990)
09 Locate a Stranger (limited 7″ 1986)
10 Archie’s dead
11 Push! (Live Sweden Gothenburg 1999)


Line-up

Thomas Luedke - vocals