Alvar — Deceivers
Deceivers offers 6 tracks of what I can only described as subterranean club music. Through use of synthesizers, percussion, effects, noise, and voice, Alvar crafts some rhythmic sounds that even the most stoic of cave-dwellers can’t help but be mesmerized by. The album begins with some buzzing synth and chants on “Turn Away in a Passive Decision.” Not far into it we get some thumping beats and hollow percussion clangs. It’s the kind of track I can see myself head thumping to in some dark, dungeon of a club. “Shadows” keeps the repetitive techno sounds flowing, but takes us down a creepy corridor with a torrent of looped screams. “Kicking Tears” isn’t quite as fast-moving, rather relying on a buoyant, thick beat with some obscured vocal work courtesy of the duo.
Flip over to side B and we continue with “Biotope.” The track blends rhythmic flashes of static and mechanical pings. The penultimate piece “Portrayal of the Trauma and Degeneration” continues with hollow sounding percussive beats and some melodic overtones of sonic detritus. Some nice synth bleeps and bloops fill out this piece, perhaps my favorite on the tape. The final piece “The Gate” is the most ominous sounding on the album. A combination of thunderous beats and buzzing synthesizers. Music of this sort usually tends to come off as cold and and synthetic to me, yet Alvar manages to keep things warm and organic sounding. I’m sure that’s in no small part the added bonus of releasing this on magnetic tape.
All in all this is some well-crafted, dark dance music. I can imagine people that dig stuff like Vatican Shadow would probably be into Deceivers.