IAMX - Kingdom of Welcome Addiction

A deep ballad is awaiting the listener here. Carefully gliding onwards on rhythmical soundscapes of slowly executed, reverberating drums and heart-rendering modern classical melodies but the real strength of ‘I Am Terrified’ undoubtedly is its chorus building from a tender and fragile vocal styling to a final eruption of emotions giving one the feeling of being able to hear tears running down Chris’s face while singing this part; or is it that just a too vivid imagination? Now let’s continue with a tune most IAMX devotees will already be familiar with: ‘Think of England’ building up on a cluster of driving beat pulses, it’s unashamedly catchy while bearing a straight sense of urgency and dramatics at the same time. Again the elegance of classic instrumentation ventures into a collaboration with the precise technical nature of straight electronics to give us a first class theatrical spectacle with ‘The Great Shipwreck of Life’ you can nearly see Mr. Corner parading over the stage in full rig while performing the incredible chorus. The matchless beauty of the closing ballad ‘Running’ can be hardly clothed in words. Concealment and sadness mix up inside the fabric of melodies enveloping beats sounding like tripping footsteps always giving you the feeling of moving away from a close emotional bond into the doubtful freedom of a single being “I must always run the race on my own…”

It’s really hard to pick a favourite tune on ‘Kingdom of Welcome Addiction’ as they’re all having their respective qualities and in each and every song you can feel how deeply intertwined the artist’s soul is with his music and therefore it’s absolutely reasonable that he’s angry and disappointed if somebody - supposedly a member of the press - spread the album online many weeks prior to its actual release date. That is showing absolute disrespect in the work of the affected artist and we can only condemn the one who’s responsible for that. The album is the best what IAMX has delivered so far and everybody who downloaded it should at least have the decency to buy it if they liked it. That should be a matter of course, unfortunately it seems like this isn’t the case everywhere anymore.


Tracklist