Customer Reviews

Inhuman

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Die Form's latest album In Human, is a strange but delightful blend of the vaporous voice of Eliane P. and the varied voice and synthetics of Philippe Fichot. This album is the first part of a diptych, with the following album being entitled Ex Human.

Known as a French S&M band, their sounds combined are a lovely apparition you should welcome into your soul. The CD runs the gamut; there are beats to shake your bootie to, as well as some ethereal romantic tunes incorporated with the top notch voice of Eliane P. The lyrics are a well-balanced combination of deep and sinister subjects with spatters of dark spiritual themes. Only Die Form can make taboo subjects such as necrophilia sound so romantic!

The CD booklet shows beautiful dark disturbing explicit Gothic type images. Kids, ask your parents before purchasing! Nudity is abound here, but done is a tasteful way.

The color purple is what I see when I hear these tunes. A deep muted purple, and visions of mist filled dark forests speckled with hidden aged tombstones. This album, in my opinion is true to Gothic Electronic form. Absolutely exquisite! They definitely have their own very distinct sound.

Again, Metropolis has sample sounds off of this new album. This album gets 4 from me. I enjoyed the uniqueness of this sound, as well as the balance of light and dark. I look forward to hearing Ex Human to see the contrast of the two albums.

This just might be Die Form's strongest material since the genius of L'LAME ELECTRIQUE. I'll admit I was a little worried when leader Philippe Fichot seemed more interested in re-issuing his band's entire back catalogue on Metropolis than actually making new music. But the new album is a stunning piece of work, comparable to their best and a great place for newbies to start.

Is there any other band in the gothic/industrial genre that has been around as long as Die Form and still continued to make such consistently powerful music? I don't think so, and their achievement is underlined by the fact that their music straddles so many styles.

What is also impressive is how Die Form keep refining their sound, while maintaining an overall sense of cohesion. One of my pet peeves on their last album, EXTREMUM, was that some of the noisier tracks which featured only Philippe's distorted vocals, while interesting, were not especially memorable. INHUMAN seems to correct this by contrasting his harsh vocals with partner Eliane's more ethereal ones on virtually every track. Eliane is all over this one, and she has rarely sounded better.

What we have here, essentially, is an almost-perfect representation of Die Form's many styles. There's the extreme industrial of "Diktat (Savage Peace)", "Ad Libitum" and "In The Depths of Mania", as well as prettier, more gothic tracks like "Psychic Colours", where Eliane's expressive vocals really shine. And then there's tracks like "The Supreme Vice", "Zoopsia" and "Amnestic Disorder" (my favorite track on the album), where everything gels into a masterful whole. Even something like "Feerie", which at first leans perilously close to Deep Forest New Age, is saved by Philippe's unerring strange sense of melody and lyrical subject matter.

It's impossible to discuss a DF album without mentioning the artwork, and Philippe's photographs here are lush, beautiful and disturbing. They carry on the album's theme of man's relationship with nature, both external (animals, plants and trees) and internal (lust, pain and fear). The digital manipulation is very well-done, and the images are almost like fine-art prints in their richness and detail.

If I had to make a criticism, it might be that some of the songs feel a little short, and I would have appreciated them opening out a bit more. But overall, this is a very rewarding listening experience, and shows why Die Form deserve to be placed among the very best in the genre.

Die Form, the sexy industrial band from France, is back with a great album. I love the female vocalist and the use of electronica that makes Die Form a unique concept band amonst the hundreds of ebm artist who often all sound the same. Die Form have their own style and sound original and evolved with nearly every album. The art work in this CD is worth the price alone! Excellent album indeed. French lyrics on this album...mostly.

As I expected it would be, this album is great, and true to Die Form's style of the last decade. Philippe just never lets his fans down, does he? (Just as a remark to the first review above, I thought it was great and very timely that he re-issued all of Die Form's rare and out-of-print work. I was going crazy trying to find some of their earlier albums ...) But back to InHuman, it's a great new treat for those of us who just cannot get enough of Eliane's heavenly voice underlined by Philippe's vocals from hell, blended to perfection, and carried by an unending creativity in their melodies and rythms. And yes, the artwork is beautifully disturbing. My only criticizm of their new work would be that although their album is consistently outstanding by Die Form standards, not a single one of the tracks seems to grab and take the listener's breath away like some of the tracks on Confessions, L'Ame Electrique, and Duality did.

This album is fantastic. Monstrously fun beats, dark lyrics... what more could you ask? Their best yet!!

This cd is amazing, a must if you like Die Form. I have the Extremum, Suspira de Profundis & L' âme electrique, but Inhuman is my new fav.