And Then There Were None - Who Speaks For Planet Earth?
STYLE: Dance/Electronic RATING OUR PRODUCT CODE: 77710-15639 LABEL: Tooth & Nail 5099923538429 FORMAT: CD Album RELEASE DATE: 2009-03-02 RRP: £12.99
Reviewed by Paul Keeble
Not the kind of thing we usually expect from guitar rock giant Tooth & Nail Records. Here we have a New Hampshire electro rock/dance outfit which sounds a little like Britain's As If... before they dropped the sequencers and club beats. The main vocalist in the band has a wheezingly expressive voice though heavily treated in effects gets a bit wearing over the length of the album while the lyrics, though exceedingly wordy, are largely obtuse and seldom give any clear acknowledgement of Christian faith. One of my criticisms of dance music is that things like melody and lyrics seem to come some way down the priority list (but maybe there's a clue in the name). This album however, under the machine-gun snare fills, synths and effects has, in songs like "The Atmosphere", "Action Is The Anecdote" and "The Alamo", some rather catchy riffs and tunes. The arrangements and production tick all the genre-specific boxes while the sleeve design is top-notch. I recently read an interview with a star dance deejay who draws thousands to his gigs at the Costa del clubs. The article mentioned an 18 year old girl from the UK who is picked out to dance in front of his decks, for whom this is apparently the fulfilment of her life ambition. If this album succeeds in getting someone such as this young person to think that maybe there is more to life than that, ("I know we were meant for more than this" - "The Atmosphere"), then it has achieved something significant.
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