Customer Reviews

Golden Foretaste of Heaven

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Alec Empire's latest completely blew me away. It's unexpected, fresh, and inspired. Perhaps it's a bit of a departure from some of his noisier 'digital hardcore' albums, but it combines some of the interesting sonic elements of those projects with almost traditional song structures and plenty of Alec's distinctive vocal delivery.

Before anyone starts to worry that Alec Empire has "sold out", I can assure you that you're not going to be hearing these tunes on the radio anytime soon. They have pop elements, but it's filtered through drum machines and massive distortion. "Bug On My Windshield" makes great use of intermittent odd meter bars to keep things slightly off balance. Some tracks like "On Fire" seem almost like something NIN might write, while "Robot L.O.V.E." reminds me of Meat Beat Manifesto, although these are highly subjective observations and others may not hear a connection.

This is one of Empire's most thoroughly enjoyable releases in a long time. I love his experimental stuff, as well as his really noisy material, but where those tend to require serious listening, "The Golden Foretaste of Heaven" is something you can put on and simply enjoy.

I'm curious to see how others feel about this album because I could see some thinking it's too conventional. As for me, I'm totally impressed and I'll be listening to this one for a long time. I'd recommend this not just to Empire fans, but also to electronic music fans who like a sort of electro/rock hybrid. Hopefully this album will see a proper domestic release to spare us USA fans the outrageous import price.

Alec Empire is a digital hardcore GOD. This album is just okay. Oh well.