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Tracklist: “Entree” * “Pharmaceutical Grade” * “God Is Art” * “Incision” * “Hollow Mask” * “This World Erase” * “Blind Mice” * “Deafening” * “This Fix” * “Stripped” * “Alpha Omega” * “Lingerie” * “Arise”

About Shiv-r:

Shiv-r are: Virul3nt (Pete Crane), and Kong (Lee Bulig).

After hitting the scene with their innovative debut album “Hold My Hand” and the hard-hitting follow up EP “Incision“, Shiv-r are back in 2011 with “This World Erase“, a new full-length album to awaken the dark side lying dormant beneath our skin. No stranger to club hits, Shiv-r tread this ground stronger and heavier than ever with plenty of harsh club annihilators destined for the dancefloor. Haunting, neoclassical tendrils also encompass the brutal club sounds while a more evolved lyrical and vocal approach attacks themes such as nihilism, the romantic rendering of abuse and above all waging a war on apathy. From the grindingly slow vampiric dirge of “This Fix“, to the psy-infused energetic explosion of “Alpha Omega” and the overly emotive title track, “This World Erase” is a varied and evolved follow-up album that further establishes Shiv-r‘s gossamer stranglehold and strives to make us feel alive in a dying, apathetic world. (source: press release)

Read about Shiv-r’s performance at Nocturnal Culture Night 2011 here| See the photo gallery for Shiv-r’s performance at Nocturnal Culture Night 2011 here

Shiv-r “This World Erase”: Viva Music Album Review:

Can a music album be an exercise in eloquence? After listening to Shiv-r’s “This World Erase”, released this week (and already a top seller with Metropolis Records and a point of pride for Infacted Records) and giving it a serious thought, the answer is definitely yes. The purity of the sound, the shrewdness, and, audacity of the lyrics, and their fortifying combination really bring on a special effect. Listening to this album is like listening to a good friend, who, no matter what the two of you are talking about, brings you reason and clarity. Nothing stands out in an obtrusive manner, and nothing provokes havoc. And all songs included in “This World Erase” are like pieces in a puzzle: they mix, they match, and fall in the right pattern before your eyes.

There is professional level hypnotism inside “Entree”, let us tell you that! And it does not stop short of anything; it goes on with dug out directly from the chemist’s shelf, a “Pharmaceutical Grade”, which flashes before your eyes panacea for the grief and hollowness, and abstracts you from your known environment in order to immerse you with powerful and decisive sound. With “Pharmaceutical Grade” already taking you higher, “God Is Art” is the least you expect; luckily, its surprise shrouds you in your entirety and lifts you to this higher ground of unheard music and delight. With a Combichrist twist to it, “Incision” creates a sacred space where you’re surrounded by the fiercest powers and the ice it sends down your spine seems to never cool off. A Viva Music favorite, “Hollow Mask” is up to the task of keeping up with an already excellent beat, and to ricochet even more pebbles on the clear mirror surface of reality, distorting your perceptions, familiarity and cognizance of the situation. Musically superb, the next track, that gives the name of the album, “This World Erase” carefully packs you up and sends you gyrating on an orbit of intelligent dark electronica. Words do not do justice to this song, you simply have to listen to it and feel it. With “Blind Mice” next, the album gathers up speed and the impetuousness of the previous tracks reverberates and brings you the exact dosage of eerie danceability and intact self-awareness. In the same realm of deprivation of the senses slit by “Blind Mice”, “Deafening” carries forth an acoustic effect worth millions, and the accompanying vocals make it dig deep into your eardrums. “This Fix”, as well as “Stripped’ provide the same instrumental complexity and force of determination, while “Alpha Omega”, inspired from the everything-ness you can get between the first and the last, rushes forth in alerting and dodging fluxes of sound, like inside a labyrinth made of neural plates, all, my friends, is happening in your head. And how good it feels! Just as illuminated, “Lingerie” has a great vibe coming in, and it is there to stay, while the ending “Arise” takes what Shiv-r have been fashioning all along to the final destination. If the powerful hypnotic effect of “Entree” needed something to be washed down with, well, it is “Arise” that can do the job, beautifully.

It’s difficult to say what “This World Erase” brings out first and foremost. Shiv-r’s music seems to know where it stands and to speak from the stance of a band who have gained their balance in just a few blows, but this is not to say that the weft of hard work is not visible in the album, not at all. An album to keep your eyes and ears open for in October, Shiv-r’s “This World Erase” will tell you lots about yourself. Enjoy!

Shiv-r – Official Website | on Facebook | Discography on Discogs