3 years after the release of their highly recognized last album “Black Halo” and its companion “Black Halo Encores”, the German duo Amnistia returns with a new studio album. “We All Bleed Red” has been a long and widely promoted item via social media during the last couple of weeks and months with the intelligent usage of a mouthwatering cover artwork around this release. Inspired by the works of the French artist Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré (1832 – 1883), who has made himself a highly recognized name as a print maker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor, the cover art for „We All Bleed Red“ is pretty much dedicated to the small family of the Dark Electro music genre.

It's that sort of a mystic, almost biblical-styled black/white art so typically for this music scene, quite related to a “Where-Angels-Fear-To-Chainsaw” Mentallo-/Puppy-an vision. And of course, the white upper-case letters “Amnistia” accented by the red rectangle has the right and familiar effect – that's a brilliant and clever realization of an art idea and works excellent also on shirts. And so “We All Bleed Red” is available in several different editions: the normal CD release (limited to 200 exemplars) features 12 tracks.

If not already sold-out while I am writing this review, there's additionally available a limited DCD edition in a digipak with a black and a red disc. This edition is part of the "We All Bleed Red” box-set and won't be sold separately, with the exception of the digital download via Bandcamp. The strictly limited box-set features asides its special packaging with stickers, photos, etc. an exclusive designed t-shirt and a tape with several live recordings out of their long career entitled “We've Always Bled Red”. Due to a constant demand further actions are already in the pipeline: Until the end of 2022 or with the start of 2023 there should be out the release of a double-LP production of the album with each 100 exemplars in red / 100 exemplars in white vinyls. Contact the band via above given addresses and ask for availability of their merch and gimmicks around this release.

Out of tradition with all Amnistia album releases before, also this album starts with a short and ominous sounding instrumental tune, “InitNine”. Second track then gives a first sweat-driving energizer with “Truth / Hurts / Lie” with its rotating bass line sequences and multiple steel-/metal-percussion elements. Clearly composed in a classic verse- / recognizable chorus-manner in their very European-sounding outfit, this is an ideal and appreciated Amnistia-track which has become somehow familiar if you've been already into their music.

It follows the title-track with Tino Claus' rough and painfully articulated vocals driven by monotonous and rather lofi-oriented synthesizer arrangements. I've heard already a few critically voices to this track and also to me this is a new and undiscovered expression of their music. However I am pretty much excited by this one. It's not only Tino's tormented vocal treatment – I enjoyed a lot Stefan Schötz' ability to leave this track in its raw and analogue-sounding attitude drifting a bit away from their otherwise invariable perfect production quality.

“The Hook” and “Dark” are two of their tracks on this album which they've decided to release as teaser tunes via their Bandcamp resource and both are drifting a bit closer to the works of some Canadian-based idols. A clear and intended installed Puppy-an influence especially with the opulent layered pad sounds on “Dark” as well as with Tino's Ogre-like vocal performance can't be contested here. With the mid-tempo tune “E.Y.S.I.D” they give us another perfectly arranged Dark Electro-track with a clear, almost “singing-along-the-line” chorus and the tastefully installed pads and layers – Stefan's programming abilities in a best mode, to me another highlight of this album.

“Thoughts” increases the speed again and invites for some dancefloor-action while “Caged” is one of those earlier released tunes which has received a “fan-made” video clip by no one else than Martin Sane of the Fix8:Sed8 fame. “Dissonantia” then is the track which starts to attack the often proclaimed “Fixi-throne” a bit with its multiple vocal samples and layered arrangement over the whole track. Two musically surprises then can be discovered with the both remaining tracks of the main album. First of “The Sinner” tries to integrate huge sounding, almost brass-like synthesizer leads as being the driving element. To me it sounds a bit comparable to some elements out of the Synthwave-genre, but actually I am not too much fond of this, because it turns out a bit too repetitive as well as it overtaxes it in the length of the whole track.

Then comes the album closer entitled “Dern” - that track which drifts the most away from the usual Amnistia-style. It's a dark droning, Tribal-inspired instrumental tune filled with several dark synth lead and pad-sounds, multiple harsher-than-usual-percussion elements and an overwhelming haunting atmosphere. Surely an experiment to place such a track into an album concept, but it acts well here as being the closing title.

If you're not a purchaser of the box-set you'll have to went over to Bandcamp to pick-up digitally the content of the second disc, but it's worth any investment. It starts with a “Redux” version of “We All Bleed Red” which is compared to the original interesting from its differently sound rhythm section – but I nevertheless enjoy the original a bit more. A “Radio Edit” of “Truth / Hurts / Lie” with a shorter playing time then follows but adds nothing remarkable new to an overall good Amnistia track. Then starts a illustrious row of remix contributions with Fix8:Sed8, Tino Claus' both projects TC75 and ner.ogris, the Munich-based duo and last years' shooting stars G.O.L.E.M., Placebo Effect, Mildreda, The Opposer Divine, Pyrroline and Terminal State. Lots of different sounding interpretations of the original Amnistia tracks are inviting the listener to dive into the deep and dark see of this music genre.

Fix8:Sed8's remix on “Dissonatia” roughens the smoother sounding original with its multiple percussion elements plus it adds that typical Puppy-an factor to it. Interesting also to see that the duo of Pyrroline remixes the same track but only under the usage of the files from Fix8:Sed8 – it's a remix of a remix, if you like so. Actually that Pyrroline version of “Dissonantia” sounds to me a bit more elaborated. It's hard to tap on a personal remix favorite on here as they all offer intelligent produced stuff which fits well to the whole release, but the surprise belongs to me personally on Tino Claus' project ner.ogris, as this one gives a much better constituted remix of “The Sinner”, which shows the hidden potential behind this track. This remix to me matches the original composition.

To sum it up and only concentrating on the 12 tracks of the main album, “We All Bleed Red” currently still grows on me. There's of course a lot of potential still to discover and yet I feel myself uncomfortable to start comparisons to their “Black Halo” album back in 2019, which is undoubtedly a milestone of the Dark Electro / Industrial music genre. Since it was relatively quiet in the first half of this year regarding releases of this special niche in the Electronic music-driven genre, then this album can be seen as the undoubtedly highlight so far, while I wouldn't go that far, that this one matches with “Black Halo”.