Blue Eyed Christ – World On Fire (Album – Distortion Productions)
Genre/Influences: EBM, electro-rock, industrial.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: John D. Norten is a veteran from the underground scene. Mainly active as a producer and mixer he’s also the creative spirit behind Blue Eyed Christ. The American formation got its success releasing on the Belgian KK Records the debut album “Leaders + Followers” in 1991. The song “Catch My Fall”, later on released as the EP title song, remains Norten’s biggest hit. A few more albums followed on an irregular basis. “World On Fire” is Blue Eyed Christ’s fifth opus and the first new one since “A Rush And A Thrill” (2014).
Content: The album takes off with an intro followed by a heavy piece of music mixing electronics and guitar. It’s hard to define the style of the album, Blue Eyed Christ mixing multiple influences with each other. Experimenting with good-old EBM reminiscences –connected with the old hit “Catch My Fall”, other songs are more into speed rhythms empowered with meowing guitar parts. En Esch and Mea Fisher (Lords Of Acid) got featured at the title track, which is for sure one of the album’s most noticeable cuts.
The album sounds diversified in sound while pretty engaged when it comes to the lyrical content and sampled passages. John D. Norten clearly has a severe view upon his country. Why am I not surprised about this?!
+ + + : The least I can say is that Blue Eyed Christ achieved an album without real compromises. It’s a diversified work, becoming a sonic mishmash. Every song sounds different and driven by other influences. From this melting pot I personally like “Massive React” for its slow cadence and the kind of choir part. Another attention grabber is the already mentioned title song featuring En Esch and Mea Fisher. The song is carried by a great male-female duo. Last, but not least “The System Pt.2” is my personal favorite track for its electronic modernism.
– – – : Diversity is okay, but too much diversity resulted in a somewhat disjointed result. It probably explains why songs like “America H”, “Manic Adderall” and “The Slow Reverse” couldn’t convince me.
Conclusion: I got a similar feeling as with the previous album; I expected Blue Eyed Christ getting back to the early danceable EBM formula of “Catch My Fall” while getting something pretty different and not entirely convincing instead!
Best songs: “The System Pt.2”, “World On Fire”, “Massive React”.
Rate: (6½).
Artist: www.facebook.com/blueeyedchrist
Label: www.distortionprod.com / www.facebook.com/distortionproductions
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