Your Life On Hold – My Name Is Legion For We Are Many (CD Album – Solar Lodge)
Genre/Influences: Goth-rock.
Background/Info: Jan Dewulf is a Belgian artist who’ll be always linked to the electro-pop project Diskonnekted and the electro-industrial project Mildreda. It’s already seven years ago now that the last Diskonnekted album has been released and in the meantime Jan Dewulf became ‘John Wolf’ to start a new and totally different project. We now welcome the second full length by his new band.
Content: This band has nothing in common with their frontman’s aforementioned projects. This is good-old gothic music with some extra rock and even garage-rock elements on top. John Wolf has a perfect timbre of voice for this kind of dark music while he sometimes reminds me a bit of Wayne Hussey. The songs are carried by strong guitar, dark bass lines and electro-melodic arrangements. From softer, melancholic pieces to harder cuts there’s a perfect balance between the songs.
+ + + : Your Life On Hold is clearly inspired by good-old 80s productions in the genre, but I can’t say it’s a cheap copy from an established formation. There’s something personal running through the work and especially the hardest cuts (cf. “Tension” and “Cold Fever”) are little sonic jewels. “Cold Fever” is an accomplished song, which also evokes shoegaze and garage-rock influences. This album reveals the right harmony between cool guitar playing and electronic arrangements while I also like the vocals of the singer.
– – – : Next to some outstanding cuts the album also features a few ‘softer’ and a bit disappointing cuts. I especially refer to the more melancholic final parts such as “System Failure” and “Dead Tree”.
Conclusion: Jan Dewulf has accomplished a successful metamorphosis as John Wolf. Even if all of the tracks can’t totally convince me, it however is a band I highly recommend.
Best songs: “Cold Fever”, “Tension”, “Bruised”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.yourlifeonhold.com / www.facebook.com/yourlifeonhold
Label: www.solarlodge.de / www.facebook.com/SolarLodgeRecords
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