Friday, January 15, 2016

Neutrale Erde - "Эволюция" [2015]

Artist: Neutrale Erde
Title: Эволюция
Genre: Darkwave
Country: Russia
Release date: 2015

Track List:
  1. Ориентация север
  2. Не умею улыбаться (digital delirium)
  3. (r)Evolution
  4. Черно-белое
  5. Biohazard (decypher ver.)
  6. Мы будем свободны
  7. Молоком
  8. Ненавижу белый цвет
  9. Мне не хватает
  10. Идем со мной
  11. Весна
  12. Никому не говори
  13. Она (Lirria's song silent ver.)
  14. Когда
Neutrale Erde (of course not to be confused with Neutral!) weren't active since 2011, so I thought Yarina (the only member of NE by now) has decided to leave the music scene. Turned out I was wrong - NE is back with a new album which is officially available for free (source).

After listening to it, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, it has several really powerful tracks in the beginning, one of which was previously released on NE's 2011 EP "Не умею улыбаться". On another hand, the album is a bit too lengthy and becomes boring close to the end. Another problem is the overuse of movie samples (which, unfortunately, is typical for a lot of Russian punk and metal as well). Overall, if you liked NE's previous LP "Infiziert" (or if you're interested in darkwave with female vocals in general), you might like this one too.

I personally can name another reason why I found this album interesting - despite its name ("Evolution"), it sounds much like the early (2006-2008) works of NE and similar bands. Very few people listen to such music nowadays, mostly due to the hipster epidemic which had a serious impact on the whole non-mainstream music scene here. The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of how the whole 80s metal and hard rock scene was cast down by grunge in early 90s. It's amazing how much damage was caused by that relatively short-lived fad - so many lesser known metal bands had to split up back then simply because they suddenly lost most of their audience. Something like this recently happened here with the so-called "Schwarze Szene" (as much as I dislike this term, "gothic scene" is even worse alternative) - especially in the nowadays' hipster capital, St.Petersburg, where NE are originally from...

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