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seventrees deadend
Artist: Seven Trees
Title: Dead/End
Genre: Dark Electro / Industrial
Release Date: 12th February 2021
Label: Progress Productions


Album Review

Remember when MANIC STREET PREACHERS recorded their debut album to a fanfare of bluster, claiming all musicians should release one explosive album, set the world on fire for a few minutes, and then quietly piss off to grow cabbages or write obscure political pamphlets in a shed for ever more. Remember? They then went on to release a million singles and albums and are still going strong today. Perhaps the Dark-Electro / Industrial scene saw its own version of this initially lofty claim in Swedish duo SEVEN TREES, who released their debut album ‘Embracing The Unknown’ back in 1997, and then vanished without a trace? Or perhaps they’re just spectacularly lazy. Either way, they are back, following up an EP from 2017 with a full-length album, and it’s like the years in between simply didn’t happen.

Is that a bad thing? Sort of. The overall sound of ‘Dead/End’ is firmly rooted in the late-nineties, so there is nothing terribly new or exciting here to titillate all but the previously initiated. However, the deliberate, mechanical coldness is injected with just enough black-hearted pathos to keep its rivets from freezing over. Spidery beats skitter about on opener ‘Veins Of Charcoal’, an unnerving and sinister atmosphere pervading this, and spilling out darkly into the sparse, claustrophobic ‘Pure Sedation’. The vocals are suitably distorted, whispered aggression giving way to more melodic bursts at times, but on the whole, this is a voice best used for scaring children, or warning about unfiltered cigarettes. It can get warring at times, as there’s only so much you can do with a gravelly monotone, but there’s no question this is the perfect match for the creeping, uncomfortable sense of dread that oozes from every dank corner of this album.

‘Game Over’ will have you sleeping with the light on, and on ‘Phased Out’ you’ll be doing that weird zombie-dance sometimes seen in dimly lit corners of sticky-floored clubs at 4am. ‘Dystopic Illusions’ is exactly what the title would imply, and so devoid of cheer it’s booked itself into emotional rehab, while ‘Final Program’ stalks in on radioactive boots and proceeds to stomp infection about the place in slow motion. And just to make sure you get the message, the poisoned kiss-off ‘Dead/End’ is heavy with its own creepy misery, before the somewhat surprisingly proggy second half hints at the closest thing to optimism SEVEN TREES have ever managed. Thankfully.

So yes, it’s bleak and grim and spooky. And yes, it’s not something that hasn’t been done before. But if you feel a year of global shutdown and internet hysteria and paranoia hasn’t quite sunk your mood low enough, then this happy little bundle will do just fine to aid you in that quest.


Tracklist

01. Veins Of Charcoal
02. Pure Sedation
03. End Of The Line
04. Game Over
05. Phased Out
06. Valium Dreams
07. Dystopic Illusions
08. Final Program
09. Dead/End


Line-up

Johan Kronberg
Henrik Karlsson


Website

https://seventrees.bandcamp.com / https://www.facebook.com/embracingtheunknown


Cover Picture

seventrees deadend


Rating

Music: 7
Sound: 7
Total: 7 / 10




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