L'Âme Immortelle - Ungelebte Leben (2024)

Country: Austria
Style: Darkwave/NDH
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 5 Jan 2024
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Here's another band new to me who may not be to you, given that they've been around since 1996 and this is their fifteenth studio album. L'Âme Immortelle, which translates to Immortal Soul, are an electro-rock band from Vienna whose sound has apparently changed over time and back again. Initially, it seems, they played darkwave, but gradually got heavier and moved into NDH, a genre I still know far too little about, even though I do know Rammstein and have now heard Oomph! and an array of others. However, later on in their career, they apparently started moving back again.

All I know is what I hear on this album, which feels less like what I know as darkwave and more like NDH lite. All the elements I expect from NDH are here, except the crunch doesn't have the impact that I'm used to. They have all the setup that Rammstein have, and some of it has edges, but every time Rammstein would kick in hard with a huge back end, L'Âme Immortelle don't. Part of that has to do with them fundamentally being only two people, Thomas Rainer and Sonja Kraushofer, both of them vocalists with the latter the lead singer and the former also playing keyboards, which I'm presuming are the only backdrop to the voices. The beats are presumably programmed on a drum machine.

Its absence of that crunch means that this often reminds me more of eighties new wave, especially as Kraushofer sings with a pop voice. Rainer provides some darkness when he opens his mouth on the opener, Was Wäre, Wenn, because he has a harsh edge to it. However, he shifts to new wave as well on War of Silence, which is lighter again. It might be NDH without the oomph, if you'll excuse that pun, but it's also darkwave without the dark. It wouldn't have surprised me to discover that I heard this track a few decades ago and simply forgot. The heavier songs here are the ones where Rainer sings more, such as the title track, which he kicks off and which plays out as a duet.

The only song where both Kraushofer and Rainer sound dark is Nie genug, even though it picks up quite a jaunty pop beat. He's certainly darker than she is on this one but she plays along more and the result is irresistible. The fact that it also features plenty of dynamic play too is just a bonus. It probably helps as well that it's bookended by two of the poppier songs in Push and Nur für euch. I should add that I like both of them, even though it's mostly the heavier songs that stood out to me on a first listen and even more so on repeats, with one notable exception in the closer that I'll talk about next.

Kraushofer moves into more of a musical theatre style for Regret, initially a ballad but one that's built a lot further than ballads tend to go. There's musical theatre throughout the album, but it's most overt in the final track, Widerhall, which means Echo and is as creepily atmospheric as what we heard from Till Lindemann in the piano version of Mein Herz Brennt and for many of the same reasons. She simply commands our attention, even though the musical backdrop unfolding behind her is notably subdued except for one brief section two thirds of the way in. It's easily my favourite piece here, all the way to its delightfully underplayed finalé.

If that suggests that there's a heck of a range here, then I'm doing my job right. Initially, I wanted to figure out if this was rock or pop, which seemed like it would depend on which mode the band is going here, heavier NDH or lighter darkwave. What I found was that there are songs that have to be called pop, whether War of Silence, which is old school new wave, or Own Ways, which feels like something off a David Lynch album. However, there are songs that are clearly rock and they're not just the heavier ones. And, of course, there's the musical theatre aspect, which isn't usually what I tend to appreciate but which is right up my alley here. This is dark and expressive musical theatre.

That genre-spanning depth kept me listening to this for a few days to try to figure out its secrets. I know I like it but I think I have to be German or Austrian to grok how appropriate this combination of genres feels and I'm not. However, I'm finding it fascinating so I'll continue to dive into NDH and electro-rock when I can.

Rivers of Nihil - The Work (2021)

Country: USA
Style: Progressive Death Metal
Rating: 9/10
Release Date: 24 Sep 2021
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Having apparently missed the biggest progressive death metal releases of last year, the majority of which came out only a few months ago in September and October, I'm catching up quickly and it does seem that the genre is vibrant and insanely varied. Rivers of Nihil, who hail from Reading in Pennsylvania, have been around since 2009 but really made a splash with their third album, 2018's Where Owls Know My Name. This fourth is a mature release indeed, running just over an hour but channelling all sorts of rock and metal from the past half century. They're varied on their own but it has to be said that they don't remotely show off like First Fragment and they're not remotely as in your face as Archspire. Sure, your run of the mill death metal bands all sound the same but, up here at the top of the heap, that's utterly not the case.

Rivers of Nihil start out hinting at prog rock, The Tower being subdued introspection for over half its running time, with gentle saxophone and soft backing vocals behind the lead's. It does explode into harsh and loud but it's still being held back. There's definitely Pink Floyd here, as there is on a few other songs, especially Maybe One Day, but I honestly think I could suggest Radiohead as well and get away with it. Of course, that's not the case when they ramp up to full on metal, which they do on the next song, Dreaming Black Clockwork.

This one's heavy when it kicks off, with harsh death vocals over blastbeats, but the song moves to an industrial sound before falling away completely, leaving us grooving in an underground cave in the middle of nowhere with an introspective saxophone and vocalist. It's a wild shift indeed, from immersion into isolation, but a good one and the transition back into metal is neatly handled. The song grows in intensity, every shift driven by Jared Klein's drums, until it ends in a dissonant wall of sound finalé that sounds like a horde of demons all screaming at once, only to drop utterly away so Wait can begin with calming piano. This is pristine use of dynamics.

And so we go. Wait isn't metal at all, a mix of rock, prog rock and new wave that builds through an engaging stripped down jazzy guitar trade-off in the second half, which is almost the antithesis of death metal. Focus continues in that vein, before escalating to a more emphatic post-punk vibe, a tasty groove and memories of Paradise Lost's One Second album. Clean adds some neat synths as much as a contrast to the harsh vocal floating around them as neat on their own merit. Again, the feel is multiple genres at once, both the Floydian prog rock and the Paradise Lost new wave flows join to create something new, all wrapped up in death metal.

I like this mix of styles and should emphasise that I've only covered the first half thus far. It keeps going in that mixed vein throughout the second without ever dropping quality. If Focus may be my favourite song from the first half, Episode may be its equivalent from the second. It runs longer, a seven and a half minute piece that really knows how to breathe. It alternates between quiet bits that are a Floydian—lots of Dave Gilmour in the solos— take on that new wave Paradise Lost era, with heavier sections that are much slower than the usual Rivers of Nihil full on death approach, but still very heavy, with a great monotonous beat to make it hypnotic.

And if I stick with Episode as my second half favourite, I have to talk about Terrestria IV: Work in a completely different category. It wraps up the album and it's easily my favourite piece here, even more varied than earlier songs. It starts out like a György Ligeti choral work, finds its sweet spot and starts developing into a true epic. It's easily the longest song here, running eleven and a half minutes, and it's a patient piece that takes its time and builds for most effect. It's death metal often, but it's also contemporary classical, avant-garde jazz, prog rock and a slew of other genres.

It's a great summary of the ambition that drives Rivers of Nihil and why people are paying a heck of a lot of attention. To release an album that sees no problem with placing the relentless death metal assault of MORE? only three songs away from the Floydian alt-prog of Maybe One Day and, in the other direction, the post-punk new wave of Focus, underlines how confident this band is in what they do and how they do it. I'm impressed.

Métronhomme - Tutto il tempo del mondo – 1.òikos (2020)

Country: Italy
Style: Fusion
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 19 Sep 2020
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This EP, from an Italian band who refuse to be categorised in a single genre, was sent to me for review and it grew on me so quickly that it was a gimme to start out a week with. Métronhomme are from Macerata and I've listed them as fusion because they clearly cross over the boundary between prog rock and jazz at will and in either direction, but they don't remotely sound like, say, Brand X and there are a host of other sounds here. This trawls in new wave, new age, ambient, world, post-rock, seventies electronic rock and a whole host of experimental genres, not least glitch.

In fact, the opening track is deceptively nice. It's called Quarantine, because the entire seven track EP was recorded during quarantine for COVID-19, which hit Italy early and hard. The last event I attended in person was Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention on the first weekend of March and the featured musical guests, Poison Garden, were Italian.; many of us were worried about whether they'd be able to get home safely. This EP was recorded in March and April, with each of the four musicians in their own homes with whatever instruments were to hand, collaborating entirely via the internet. That's why all the drums are handheld.

Maybe the early quarantine in Italy enabled Métronhomme to adjust to this new way of life quickly. I enjoyed Quarantine, but it's so smooth that it slips right past us in as polite and inoffensive a way as possible. Every time I listen to it, I enjoy it but then it vanishes from me again, as if it's a soundtrack contribution whose only purpose is to accompany. Certainly, Métronhomme have composed that sort of material, for film, theatre, gaming, advertising, you name it.

However, no track on this EP is a mirror of any other. Come la Neve is most obviously different for the inclusion of vocals, which are calm and laid back, but there's a real melancholy in this song that surely speaks to the conditions under which it was written and recorded. The band say that this isn't meant to "speak directly of the lockdown" but that "it captures all the emotional charge" that the band felt "in such a peculiar moment." That rings especially true on Come la Neve, even if I don't understand a word of the vocals.

It's Di una Moneta che Cade where the EP really spoke to me. The opening pair of songs find their groove and wrap up quickly and, relatively to the rest of the album, simply. This third has a very different approach, being wildly progressive, full of dynamic play and constantly innovative. It's jazz to start with, soft but with an experimental edge, almost acoustic space rock. There's no real beat and the synths are extremely playful. Instruments join and leave, like this is a sort of ongoing conversation rather than a song, and those instruments aren't all traditional. Who's credited on fishtank? Then, a couple of minutes in, at the point the earlier songs were ending, this leaps into more traditional territory, with a strong sense of melody but a giallo soundtrack feel. It ends up rather like Brian Eno collaborating with Goblin.

And this experimentation keeps on building. The lively Supermarket somehow reminds of both Gary Numan and Coil, hardly a pair of influences I'd expect to cite at the same time. Arkè is like a Suzanne Ciani solo piano piece but decorated with electronic graffiti and samples. Il Rumore del Mare is 8-bit chiptune underneath alternative rock. This is the other song with vocals, but they're entirely unlike Come la Neve; I presume Tommaso Lambertucci sang one and Marco Poloni the other. La Città di K. is the purest instrumental jazz/prog, with Spanish sounding guitar, a mellow bass, haunting melodies on synths and perhaps wind instruments, and the latest in an impressive line of what are credited as "assorted percussions". Special kudos to Andrea Lazzaro Ghezzi for finding such fantastic ways to deal with not having all the drum equipment he's used to.

While the early two minute songs felt short, more fragments than completed pieces, the EP as a whole feels fleshed out and vibrant, yet it still wraps up in under twenty-five minutes. It's definitive proof that, while COVID-19 continues to ravage the globe and lockdowns, quarantines and restrictions can't yet be confined to the past, that doesn't have to quench the creative forces. I'd have enjoyed this EP in any circumstances but, knowing that it was written and recorded with no band member in the same place as any other, it shows the way for others who might be feeling stifled in these trying times. And, if that wasn't obvious enough, this is part one of a release that will be completed in traditional style when this crisis is over.

AUA - I Don't Want It Darker (2020)

Country: Germany
Style: New Wave/Psychedelic Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 4 Sep 2020
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Here's a new debut album that got under my skin that's a little hard to describe, from a Leipzig duo known as AUA, which is presumably an acronym for something I'm blissfully unaware.

I'm listing them as psychedelic rock, which is true as anything else, especially given that listening to this on repeat might just induce a trance state, but it's a little misleading. Their core sound is British new wave, located somewhere in the transition between the end of Joy Division and the beginning of New Order. The disinterested vocals remind a little of Ian Curtis, though they're less of a focal point, more like the Cocteau Twins at their most textured, and the drums on the title track are right out of Joy Division too, but the keyboards are too perky, pushing them into the New Order era.

And the keyboards are really important here, taking the place of the guitars in a rock band, so much so that there are easy comparisons to krautrock and its electronic descendants. Instrumental pieces like Starstruck clearly have Tangerine Dream somewhere in their ancestry but at a distance because they're shorter and poppier and interested in hooks rather than themes. I'm not immersed enough in the history of German electronica to viably suggest comparisons but it's all warmer and more organic than Kraftwerk yet more grounded in the old school than any more modern genre of dance music that I've heard.

The result is a fascinating one for me. My brain tells me that the relentlessly perky beat of Coke Diet shouldn't be applicable to either ethereal vocals or guitar fuzz, but somehow it all works. Some of the synthwork reminded me of Vangelis and that couldn't help remind me in turn that, while I enjoy his solo work immensely, adding Jon Anderson to the mix created something new. Albedo 0.39 and The Friends of Mr. Cairo are utterly different albums, even if they're grounded in the same keyboardist. This feels like that, as if this was a parallel universe collaboration between Vangelis and, say, Damon Albarn of Blur, that took from both their styles but created something else entirely.

It helps that AUA constantly bring in new sounds as they deem fit. No Treatment trawls in surf guitar and that puts us into the sort of bizarre indie territory that I remember from the Dark Night of the Soul album by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse. The whole album would be a good companion piece but I'm especially remembering the title track with echoey backing and a distorted vocal from David Lynch.

Lynch comes to mind in another sense, because this could easily be a soundtrack, even the tracks with vocals. The question becomes what sort of movie would feature such a soundtrack. It would have to be European and independent, dark themed and a little off the wall. But, if Lynch was ever exiled to the continent the way Orson Welles was and he put together a cult retro science fiction tale set in West Berlin, this album would be knocking on his door demanding to be included.

As you might imagine from my words thus far, there's a lot to absorb here. Taken as a whole, it's not like anything I've heard before and I live to say things like that. However, there are so many moments that spark memories of other artists and bands. That's a Kings of the Wild Frontier-era Adam and the Ants beat, but that pulse is quintessential Pink Floyd. Often they come together, like on the closer, Umami Karoshi, which combines an old school Bauhaus beat, a Repo Man Iggy Pop bass line and a Nothingface-era Voivod vocal, along with a frickin' theremin for good measure. How's that for a mix?

The two gentlemen behind AUA, whatever it stands for, are Henrik Eichmann and Fabian Bremer and I can't help but wonder what else they've done. It wouldn't surprise me if they each knock out a dozen albums a year in wildly different styles. Let's go see!