Tracklist:
01. You Want It | 02. Explode | 03. Cuts | 04. Do You Feel The Same | 05. Fall Apart | 06. Waiting For The Snow | 07. Ignite | 08. Skrik | 09. Supposed | 10. All That You Take
Read the album press release here.
Viva Music Album Review
Note: If the review is overwhelmingly positive, it is because we at VIVA MUSIC are thrilled about the latest release from NECRO FACILITY, “Wintermute”, out tomorrow May-13 with Progress Productions. Not only is the album a delightful listen you feel the urge of listening again when you finished listening to it the first time; but also because it is a well-needed breath of fresh air to the electro and industrial scenes. This is not a harsh judgment or a misguided view on a rich and creative scene, but the mere acknowledgement that there is always room for new material. Add on to the solid pumping veins of the COMBICHRIST body the engaging rhythm of MIND.IN.A.BOX and top it all with the elegance of COVENANT – and you will get a fair, but hypothetically stereotypical image of what you are up against with this new album.
“Wintermute” is the third album from NECRO FACILITY. They enact bravely and self-aware their wunderkind status and fame in order to provoke, engage, entertain and supersede expectations with each new push and shove of sound charges. It is a powerful, yet delicate album and sure thing, if the chronology of the band’s releases has some say in it, the four years that have elapsed since their latest, they used this time well, paced their creativity in great strides and came up with a unitary album, not unlike “Black Paintings” and “The Room”, their previous masterpieces.
Previously to their new album release, NECRO FACILITY were featured earlier this year on COVENANT’s much awaited newest album “Modern Ruin” (read VIVA MUSIC’s review here), on the very catchy track “Lightbringer”. While with “Lighrbringer” you can read NECRO FACILITY’s contribution between the lines, it is still not of the same ethereal and uninhibited nature NECRO FACILITY can do on their own.
“You Want It”, the first track from the album, is straightforward, convincing and totally outgoing. The lyrics “You want it/You got it” are probably the best description of the song itself; it offers the necessary electro/industrial response you have been waiting for in recent years. Glossier, groovier and sexier than its predecessor track, “Explode” functions like a generator – it powers up and does not let down one bit – with its sudden clashes of idyllic sound and industrial miniature tours de force. “Cuts”, lurking and brimful with very powerful images, such as knives imagery, is a song negotiated in a liminal encounter, all subtly kept under a terrifyingly musical lid. With a very jingle worthy chorus, the song does a great job of what more of today’s electronica could, and should look like.
“Do You Feel the Same” is a song about perfection: perfect timing, perfect track length, just perfect. If bands are looking for tips on how to render a very delicate beginning in a very engaging and novel industrial manner, this song should be taught at school. Not at all coy and overmodest for all the wrong reasons, the song is an assumed anthem that will sweep you off your feet. Then it’s the turn of “Fall Apart” to move more on the light side, whilst not taking things lightly: it combines the disappointment of “falling apart. again” and the lightness brought by the melodic instrument and connives elegantly with the listener in the pure joy of listening to music for music’s sake.
“Waiting for the Snow” is a majestic musical example of emotional landscapism – it plays upon the preternatural and supernatural in ways that make both the song and the band intimate, clear, and responsive. “Ignite”, then, is spatial and overpowering. Not unlike the previous tracks from the album, it reflects consistently on tension and confers in all confidence to the audience the misgivings of emotion and the roles played by hope and resilience in people’s lives.
“Skrik” is the only song from the album with a Swedish title, as “Skrik” is Swedish for scream, and this is how a scream sounds from beneath our skins. Back to the sexier tones of earlier tracks, “Skrik” cuts deep into the vein that gave you earlier “Ignite” or “Fall Apart”. “Supposed” is a jet of supraliminal explosions that surface at the boundary of each feeling, everything being described under an avalanche of sound. The closing title of the album, entitled “All that You Take” is about the same, almost transcendental negotiation of emotions. If “Wintermute” is how people feel after intense emotional exchanges, then it is true that the geography of the album, gently unraveling to and fro vows of silence and outbursts, from serenity to full combustion.
Everyone should give “Wintermute” a listen, especially if what you are looking for is creative freshness and sound technical skills put to good use in relevant electronica. Don’t forget, “Wintermute” is out tomorrow!
Genre: Electro / Alternative
Release title: Necro Facility – “Wintermute”
Release date: 13.05.2011
Band members: Henrik Bäckström, Oscar Holter
Year of foundation: 2000
Label: Progress Productions
Update on 20.05.11: Necro Facility’s “Wintermute” entered the official Swedish album charts at position #43.
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