Customer Reviews

Only Heaven

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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The Young Gods is one of the most interesting bands nowadays. They escape all boundaries and styles with a mixture of industrial, psychedelic rock and ambient textures that no other band has achieved to make with such brilliance.
It's a pity actually that this band's records are almost out of stock everywhere, cos they have made some of the most innovative and inspired albums of the 90's, even though they are ignored by media.

They have usually recognised as the band that invented sampled music, and even though may be a bit of an exageration, what is undeniable is that they were one of the first and definetely one of the best in handling sampled instruments.

This album is full of good songs, and that's what an album is supposed to contain. All of them are different enough to make the entire listening a very satisfying experience, and similar enough to give it a touch of conceptual unity.

If you ar familiar with the Young Gods, you'll know that with their previous album (TV Sky) they had made the most guitar-based album of their career, in a somewhat Ministry style. well, sort of.
With Heaven Only they combine those guitars with ambient passages and electronic devices.
Some songs are just short sketches ('Outside', 'Gardez les esprits') of no more than 1 minute long. Maybe fillers, it depends, but they are not bad at least.
There are a couple of pseudo-industrial guitar based songs ('Strangel', 'Speed of Night', 'Kissing the Sun') which are very energetic, but never as raw as for example Skinny Puppy or Ministry. They usually have ambient passages which make an interesting contrast with the guitars. The voice is energetic and with personality, but never disgusting. 'Kissing the Sun' is very catchy actually, a very good song.
Other songs are more electronic ('Donnez Les esprits', 'The dreamhouse', 'Lontaine') and are probably some of the best, since the electronics are innovative enough to delight us but not so cold as to kill the emotion transmitted by the melody. In fact, The Young Gods aer very good at melodies, and their songs sound to me very emotional. The most emotional of all is 'Child in a Tree', an acoustic guitar ballad full of melancholy.
And not to forget 'Moon evolutions', a more than 15 minute suit where they remind me of U2 and Pink Floyd with an industrial feeling, very interesting indeed, a song divided into 3 parts with a long ambient beatless passage in the middle.

I'm never sure which album I like best by The Young Gods, and that's a good sign I guess. But definetely Heaven Only is one of my favourite. If you think industrial music is just unlistenable music with distorted voices... or Mansonesque charade... give The Young Gods what they deserve... many listenings. For me, they are nowadays what Can were in the 70's.

Definitely one of my favourite albums. Unfortunately they have not caught on strongly with the North American audience, but this has to be one of the best CDs I own and I don't hesitate to recommend it to anyone. Of all of the Young Gods' work, I think this was their peak of creativity. The new stuff doesn't sound the same. It's hard to classify, but if you like heavy music with a fusion of heavy guitars and drums with electronics, this is the album. It's better than any other industrial band I know (although I would classify this more as rock) including the Ministry. Take a chance. You won't be disappointed.

This album represents the tunning point for the band. It's accessible to most fans, it's got the earlier metal and hint of the next few works that were much mellower trance/ambient (in my mind) nonsense. It was probably a sign of the times and luckily the latest album is a brilliant return to business as usual. Check out "super fragmente" if you liked the earlier works.

This record is an excellent introduction to the crushing futuristic might of the most innovative band in rock.The Young Gods combine dub,hiphop,avantgarde and metal into a hairraising masterpiece.Pure liquid chromium.

"Only Heaven" is in my humble opinion, the best album of the 90s with "OK Computer" running a close second. If you like avant garde, techno, industrial, prog rock, etc. you should own this album. I saw them live in '95 on the tour for this album and they did not disappoint. Buy this record immediately!!!