Assemblage 23 — Failure
[Accession — 2001]★★★★★
Andreas OelkeIn no way can this album be seen as a failure as it is already one of the top electro/ebm releases of this year. This is the second album from one-man band Assemblage 23. The only band member Tom Shear already founded this band back in 1988 but it seems his first offical release was one song on a electro-industrial compilation in 1995.There might be very obvious influences on this album from bands like VNV Nation, Covenant, Icon of Coil and Apoptygma Berzerk but Tom Shear is mixing all of this together into something really great, creating a high quality electro album.Not only the music is of a very high quality but the lyrics have to be amongst the best I have ever heard in the electro genre so far.
Although most of the songs are quite uptempo and made for the dancefloor, the lyrics are rather dark and depressive.
Tom's father has commited suicide a while ago and this has probably influenced him quite a lot during the making of this album.
Though most of the songs show him in some kind of dark corner of life, he's always showing strength that he will never give up. You can get a good feeling for the atmosphere of the lyrics with this part of the song "Naked":
I am naked
I have nothing left
My bones are picked clean
And riddled with regrets
Nothing can touch me
I've nothing left to take
For I am naked
But I can never break
Most of the songs are also quite philosophical and tell about the strength of the human mind to be able to get out of the darkness again as in "Divide", one of my favorite songs on this album with a melody and refrain that won't leave your head anytime soon after you have heard it:
My eyes divide the sky
As sirens sound in heaven
My will brings down the moon
And shatters it to pieces
All the songs are very melodic and have kind of catchy "Apoptygma Berzerk"-like refrains. Tom is mainly singing with a very deep and pleasant voice, there's just one song with extremely distorted and harsh vocals in a more industrial kind of way ("Silence").
The last song "King of Insects" is quite calm with a slow and depressive piano melody.
It's way more stripped down and sounds much more depressive than the other songs but it's an excellent closure to an excellent album with no weak songs at all.
Although most of the songs are quite uptempo and made for the dancefloor, the lyrics are rather dark and depressive.
Tom's father has commited suicide a while ago and this has probably influenced him quite a lot during the making of this album.
Though most of the songs show him in some kind of dark corner of life, he's always showing strength that he will never give up. You can get a good feeling for the atmosphere of the lyrics with this part of the song "Naked":
I am naked
I have nothing left
My bones are picked clean
And riddled with regrets
Nothing can touch me
I've nothing left to take
For I am naked
But I can never break
Most of the songs are also quite philosophical and tell about the strength of the human mind to be able to get out of the darkness again as in "Divide", one of my favorite songs on this album with a melody and refrain that won't leave your head anytime soon after you have heard it:
My eyes divide the sky
As sirens sound in heaven
My will brings down the moon
And shatters it to pieces
All the songs are very melodic and have kind of catchy "Apoptygma Berzerk"-like refrains. Tom is mainly singing with a very deep and pleasant voice, there's just one song with extremely distorted and harsh vocals in a more industrial kind of way ("Silence").
The last song "King of Insects" is quite calm with a slow and depressive piano melody.
It's way more stripped down and sounds much more depressive than the other songs but it's an excellent closure to an excellent album with no weak songs at all.
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