The Industrial Twilight: Scanner - "Hypertrace" [1988]

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Scanner - "Hypertrace" [1988]

Artist: Scanner

Title: Hypertrace

Genre: Heavy/Power Metal

Country: Germany
Year: 1988

Track List:

Warp 7
Terrion
Locked Out
Across the Universe
R.M.U. (Reticular Modular Unit)
Grapes of Fear
Retaliation Positive
Killing Fields
Wizard Force

Since I've started to post classic metal albums once again, why not to post this gem as well? As I've already said, it's very hard to find some good speed/power metal with science fiction-themed lyrics. This release is a prime example of what I'm looking for, along with "Skeptics Apocalypse" by Agent Steel and some other albums that I've posted here before under the "heavy metal" and "power metal" tags.

Musically, "Hypertrace" is very good 80's heavy/power metal, but what makes this album so special is its conceptual sci-fi storyline, with a very apparent anti-war message. The original pressing of "Hypertrace" consisted of 8 tracks ("Wizard Force" is a CD bonus, and there was also a bonus track named "Galactos" on the Japanese CD edition). However, the track sequence doesn't actually follow the story. The correct track order should be as follows:

Grapes of Fear
Locked Out
Across the Universe
Wizard Force
Retaliation Positive
Galactos
Warp 7
Killing Fields
R.M.U.
Terrion

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About this blog

I created this blog mostly because I wanted to practise my English skills, and to showcase the industrial, gothic, punk, metal, neofolk and progressive rock scene of Russia/ex-USSR and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary) in the meanwhile.

As you can see, this blog doesn't take itself seriously enough, but I hope I'm doing good enough with my reviews even if my proficiency in English is limited. Along with the aforementioned stuff from Eastern Europe, I occasionally post some classic and rare albums that aren't to be missed, and generally whatever I want. Other categories of note:

* finno-ugric rarities - various music (including pop) in minor Finno-Ugric languages which I'm interested in because of my heritage. The music from Hungary, Finland and Estonia can be found under the respective categories;

* lo-fi - various poorly recorded demos from before 2000 that are of historical importance. Most of these demos come from the USSR era, so you might want to check out the USSR category as well.

As of now, I try to post only music that has already been made free by the artists themselves, or the rare old releases that are out of print. But if you're an artist and would like me to remove the download links of your work, just contact me using the form below.

Sorry, I don't do reviews by request, I don't have the time. Moreover, I think the bands that feel the need to advertise themselves by sending their demos to as many blogs as possible are usually just plain boring. If you want to contact me for any other reason, use the contact form below.

It should be obvious enough that reviewing anything on here doesn't equals endorsement of artists' personal views. This especially concerns neofolk and martial industrial. It'd be fair enough to say that I have the same approach to the political and religious topics in these genres as Laibach do.

Many of the female musicians featured on my blog are amateur models, and in many cases their modelling work is no less interesting than their music. Right now I'm working on giving it a separate section of the blog (just in case if anyone wants my review to be only about their music and not their looks). The work is in progress, check back later if you're interested.

The title of my blog comes from a song by The Kovenant (album "SETI", 2003).