- Label: 'Trisol Music Group'
- Genre: 'Industrial'
- Release Date: '24th September 2021'
Our Rating:
If industrial music connotes harsh, abrasive, mechanised, then there is a strain of industrial that has considerably more soul and softness, and Norwegian industrial act Zeromancer, returning after a substantial break – fully 8 years since their last album, 2013’s ‘Bye-Bye Borderline’ exist very much in this domain of melodic, emotionally-driven industrial.
Lead single, damned Le Monde’ is exemplary, with tunes, melody, and even harmony at the fore. Where the likes of Ministry and KMFDM are preoccupied with kicking the shit out of everything, it’s worth noting that some acts – notably Nine Inch Nails – manage to move between all-out attack and reflective, introspective, and even accessible sounds, and Zeromancer’s combining with synths with conventional rock (and I mean specifically rock, rather than metal) elements, with ‘Orchestra of Knives’, Zeromancer land somewhere between The Young Gods and Filter.
‘Mourners’ is sparse, moody, with bubbling Depeche Mode electronica and soulful vocals coming together for some moments that
The second half of the album sees the electronic elements nudge to the fore and inches closer to the gloomy, trudging technoindustrial thud that became prominent in the mid to late 90s and in the years shortly after the tune of the millennium. Both the powerful ‘Worth Less than Deutsche Marks to Me’ and the slow-building title track are representative of this starker, darker side of the band and the album.
‘Stand on Ceremony’ is a slow, more conventionally rock song, melding post-punk and grunge for the verses before ripping into a hard-driving electronic chorus – and in the space of five minutes, encapsulates the entire duality of the album – something which gives it an energy and dynamism that sets it apart.
