| Various Artists / Unquiet Grave Vol 4 |
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| Album: | Unquiet Grave Vol 4 | Collection: | General | |
| Artist: | Various Artists | Added: | 09/2004 | |
| Label: | Cleopatra Records | |||
| A-File Activity |
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| Add Date: | 2004-09-13 | Pull Date: | 2004-11-14 |
| Week Ending: | 17 Oct | 3 Oct | 26 Sep | 19 Sep |
| Airplays: | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
Recent Airplay
| 1. | Aug 24, 2006: | Cognitive Overload Vote for Love | 4. | Oct 02, 2004: | On The Warpath Novocaine Live | |
| 2. | Jul 22, 2006: | Bloodstains Across Atherton Visions of Ezekiel | 5. | Sep 29, 2004: | Stirling's Approximation Urdoguzes | |
| 3. | Oct 13, 2004: | Brownian Motion Urdoguzes | 6. | Sep 24, 2004: | Bloodstains Across Atherton Dawn |
| Album Review |
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| Ragnar of Ravensfjord Reviewed 2004-10-17 | ||
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L: Unquiet Grave Vol. 4 (Cleopatra) This is one of the better series of compilations this label has put out. As opposed to their never-ending series of sketchy quality-at-best tribute albums. “Hot For Remix: An Electronic Tribute To Van Halen”. Was THAT even necessary? Anyway, this focuses on gothic rock/electronic EBM/some doom metal/dark folk & a bit of synth pop. It’s mostly good stuff - so here’s the low down. Disc I ((((1)))) The Dagons: Brooding organ sound followed by pounding drums and some possessed women singing in what sounds like backwards Spanish or French. Rad! ((2)) Lacuna Coil: In a word: overrated! Yeah, OK, I’ll confess Christina Scabbia’s really good looking but what about the music? Well, standard form, so-so etheral pop/gothic stuff. It’s been done before and much better. Touring with P.O.D. & Evanesence is artistic fucking suicide. (((3))) Mortiis - No more straight-up bleak dark ambience from this Norwegian elf. Nope he’s gone & done groovy EBM with some Peter Murphy styled vox. It ain’t a sellout, it’s just another turn in the strange life of Mr. Elfssen. ((((4)))) Switchblade Symphony - One of the best gothic bands in the current age. Slow, nicely paced with trippy percussion & acoustic guitars. Not too different some stuff by The Creatures. Most of the vocals seem to be in some weirdly phrased Cocteau Twins way. (((((5))))) The Gathering - One of The Netherland’s finest bands. Strummy guitars and some groovy electronics waves & trippy beats. Lest I forget the highly addictive voice of Anneke Van Gisberg. ((((6)))) Tiamat - Another Northern European band like The Gathering who started very much death metal and now is pretty much etheral/gothic rock. We’re not at a loss for the change. Great mix of The Church/Sisters of Mercy style with hynotic Loop-styled guitar riffing. (((7))) Audra - Noisey dancey/electro-industrial. This easily would’ve been home on Wax Trax! Circa 1989-90. Some twist of The Neon Judgement and Tones On Tail. (8) Birthday Massacre - Great band name but severly cheesy synth pop. Missing Persons lite? (9) Lunarclick - Slightly more groovy version of the formula that Birthday Massacre does but still nothing too enticing & still hella corny. (10) Morticians - Pretty decent, slowly moving synths and then morose Brit-guy vocals. Jeez what is this the Pet Shop Boys? Next! ((11)) Cellardweller - A little better but serious NIN worship. At least it has some bombast. NIN mixed with Gary Numan. Not bad, but too obvious. (12) Razed In Black - EBM/techno which falls under the generally annoying side. Fuckin’ Aye please KILL that bloody “rave” sound! (((13))) The Third Man - Bouncy, electroic laser something like recent Skinny Puppy and some pretty good sombre & distant vocals. Very late 80’s sounding but in a good way. ((((14)))) Bio: tek - Now that’s more like it! Sample of some twisted documentary and some total Wax Trax! 1989 style. Big-ass beats and repetitive electronic “blek-blek-blek” stuff. Sounds like something that could’ve been from 1988-89 era Belgium or Yugoslavia. (((15))) Fr/Action - Sped up videogame sounding (think “Pole Position” on speed) cycling through this pretty bareable Giogio Moroder laden wave of driving electro-disco. Normally, i’d hate this but this ‘un has that “jenny say kwa” that just works. ((16)) Frequency Construct - Slow, bouncy & kind of pissed off vocals yet very melodic layers of syn ths & computer sounds. Pretty dance-y I’d suspect. (((((17))))) Maelstrom - Killer noise & pounding done the OLD WAY! Think SPK, Throbbing Gristle.Einstrüzende Neubauten, Cabaret Voltaire. (((18))) How Like A Winter - One of the weirdest named bands ever. Anyway, these Italians make some pretty nice gothic/doom metal ‘ala mid-period My Dying Bride. The main problem is that is just too derrivative of M.D.B. The violin & guitar parts are still quite good, though. (((19))) Wehrwolfe - Slow moving percussion & bass. Disc II Note: I can’t listen to tracks 1-3 ‘cause someone put a sharpie across the CD and those tracks don’t play at all! (((4))) Honey To Ash - Folksy, strummy etheral chill-out. Kinda warm, kinda fuzzy. Something like Azalia Snail meets the Cocteau Twins. ((5)) The Autumns - Great acoustic guitar playing but the vocals are a little too “fey” for me. ((((6)))) Steve Von Till - OK, I’m biased - EVERYTHING that Von Till touches is just about gold! Slow, smoky vocal, dark folk starkness. Not too different from the equally excellent solo work by Mark Lanegan. (((7))) AntiMatter - Etheral folk with an ex-member of the metal/melancholly rock band, Anathema. Some pretty good female vox. Listen to this one late at night. ((8)) Dragonspoon - Sounds like one of the lesser bands from the old Cest L’mort label. AKA: So-so border-line Tori Amos-ish semi-dark folksy etheral pop. (((9))) Gary Numan - What can you say this robotic mofo has still got it. Some airy, sort of spacey sci-fi electro pop. Not his best but something about the disembodied voice that really makes this work. ((((10)))) Corpus Delicti - Awesome medieval-era music gone dark psych with creepy spoken vocals. (((11))) ZZZ Bot - Some voices of kids and minimal electronics & spares beats. Teerting on downtempo trip-hop. This weirdness grows on you. ((((12)))) X Vortex - Super generic electro/EBM/industrial name but hauntingly good EBM/industrial with creepy whispery female vocals. Lydia Lunch goes EBM? (((((13))))) November’s Doom - Jazzy, shimmering guitar chords beautiful female vocals (and some occasional spoken male vocal lines) instead of doomy & loud metal. Gorgeous stuff no matter what style. ((14)) October Hill - Nice acoustic guitars & OK female vocals but mostly bland. (((15))) Inner - Bouncy, ping-pong-like beats, with slow sort of poetic gothic etheral vocals. Great vocal performance if anything. (((16))) Plink - Yep, that’s what they sound like. Some electroic water faucet dripping, a computer blipping & plinking under the very blissed out etheral vocals. Almost too slowed down & blissed out but nice notheless. 17) Molotov Elysian - Sounds very sombre. Something like a bland version of The Moon Seven Times or Azure Ray. Nothing goin’ here. ((18)) Trippy & creepy suicide story samples mixed with folk sturmmy and wallpaper beats. This reeks of bad college coffee house music. Though the samples are rad. ((((19)))) The Lvrs - Spoken word - about some harsh experience at an attempt at murder & rape underscored by brooding, slow waves of electronics. Pretty similar to Lydia Lunch’s spoken word stuff. Pretty fucking confrontational, too. Don’t listen to this alone! (2:15 FCC “fucked”) | ||
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