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Tracklist: “A Nice Place to Visit” * “The Devil’s in the Details” * “The 11th Hour” * “Hit the Streets” * “One and Only” * “Inhuman” * “Celebrity Sin” * “Filthy Design” * “Motherf***er” * “Under Your Skin” * “The Little Death” * “All Beauty Destroyed”

Aesthetic Perfection – “All Beauty Destroyed” Viva Music Album Review:

The third and most recent Aesthetic Perfection album, was released in November with Out of Line and Metropolis Records and it all looks very good! With various formats released simultaneously (including two-disc and special editions), and hailed by two earlier single releases (late 2010/early 2011 “The Devil’s in the Details” and late 2011 “Inhuman”), the album is a complete and very fulfilling experience for the listener, which, is not unusual for an Aesthetic Perfection album.

There are several character traits of “All Beauty Destroyed” that need to be taken into account when addressing the question of just how good it is. Namely, one cannot talk about the new album without resorting to superlatives, but these superlatives are taken from the verbal realm of domination, aggression, violence, and protest. This is to say, there is not a song that speaks sweet, but brandishes instead the sword of a conqueror. Without false pretense, and without trying to pose nice where this will be superfluous and ridiculous to some extent, the album is an honest and animated appeal to embrace a new aesthetic perfection, that of all beauty destroyed.

And being convinced by the album is not a hard task at all; and no matter your point of breaking and entering its solid compound, you’re in the right point. “A Nice Place to Visit” is an augural song, and it is imperfectible above its current state of perfection: a flawless, incredible piece of music that takes one on the album’s joyride with “The Devil’s in the Details” coming next, a great, through album track which since its early release as a single was also featured on rockband.com for X-box (also PS3 portable) so it could be used in a band battle in the game. While the song unleashes a killing load of emotions that is without fail heading your way, it is not here that the album shows its best temper. It’s up to “The 11th Hour” and “Hit the Streets” to make it clear that the breach is perpetual and not otherwise a random strike of genius. With “One and Only”, a Viva Music favorite, we get on the very brink of despair, with bouts of anger ricocheting in a pressurized chamber made of steel. “Inhuman”, the great track which we had the opportunity to listen to before the album release (and what a listen it was! in its album version, but also in the Combichrist, iVardensphere and Imperative Reaction remixes) is next on the album, forming a tight and impenetrable circle of sound with “Celebrity Sin” and “Filthy Design”, which are both beautiful compositions of acute aesthetic sophistication. And next, not only does “Motherf***er” inflame the already heated atmosphere, but it also lays down a neat and perilous paths for a roundup of Viva Music favorites: “Under Your Skin”, an insinuating ambush, “Little Death” (glorious sexy lush song – after all, ‘little death’ is another way of saying ‘orgasm’), and “All Beauty Destroyed”, the album title track, with a great piano performance and making good use of Mr. Graves’ vocal skills. The extended version of the album also features remixes from Hocico, X-RX, Caustic, and Alter der Ruine.

“All Beauty Destroyed” is, as this was expected by people who have been keeping the Aesthetic Perfection agenda alive for at least the last six years, a great score for our contemporary fears, pleasures and response to various types of domination. It is intricate, powerful and sublime and carries on a certain flair of contemporariness to it. Enjoy!

Aesthetic Perfection – Official Website | on Facebook | Discography on Discogs