Alien Vampires – Return Me To Hell (Album – Alfa Matrix)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Electro, Industrial, EBM.
Format: Digital, 2CD.
Background/Info: Italian Electro-act Alien Vampires strikes back with their first new studio-album in eight years. “Return Me To Hell” is a double disc featuring twenty one songs. The sixth studio full length comes 20 years after the band’s inception.
Content: Alien Vampires haven’t changed their initial approach composing harsh and merciless Electronic music. Harsh and provocative but still featuring ‘poppy’ melody lines, the work brings different influences together. Most of the tracks are powerful now and then boosted with extra guitar riffs. The second disc sounds more diversified, exploring Industrial-Rave fields -one of the cuts have been composed together with Chainreactor. A few extra guests have been invited to achieve this work which comes to an end with a cover version of Skinny Puppy’s legendary hit “Assimilate”.
+ + + : Time is going fast but Alien Vampires haven’t lost their power and nose for provocation. Just take a look at the front cover of the album and you’ll immediately seize what this band is made of. But Alien Vampires are much more than an image, it’s a band with a great sound. There’s no true innovation but a perfect balance between elements of Dark-Electro, EBM, Techno-Trance, Industrial and even Dark-Pop. All ingredients have been shaken by powerful rhythms to produce dancefloor killers. The first disc sounds great but the second one moves a step further revealing a band at full speed and driven by adrenaline. Nothing sounds impossible for Alien Vampires and everything they touched turns into sonic gold. It’s hard to give a favorite track as there are multiple smashers featured.
– – – : The single cut that couldn’t convince me is the chaotic-sounding cover version of “Assimilate”. This could be cool to play live but poorly inspired on this album. I think there’s no reason to complain about this single cut as this album is probably the best one the ‘vampires’ have ever released.
Conclusion: A fully accomplished and diversified piece of Dark-Electro made in Italy.
Best songs: “Destroyer”, “10 Bags 10 Lines”, “Hyperbolic Doubt Feat. Chainreactor”, “Ready To Die”, “Automatic Writing”, “World In Denial”, “Time”, “Fuck Borders”.
Rate: 9.
Artist: Official Alien Vampires Facebook page
Label: www.alfa-matrix.com / www.facebook.com/Alfa.Matrix
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.