This is without doubt the most unusual release of the label joint venture Nadanna so far, as the new project of Thomas Martiné stands for the first output which drifts away from their self-proclaimed label program to “blur the lines between Minimal Synth, Italo Disco, and Electropop”. Martiné differs and deals rather with a well-balanced mixture between common Futurepop-elements up to the lighter side of Dark Electro- / Industrial music. This been said, it's surely a nice and appreciated form to vary and extend the label program and its roster.

After a long-year lasting career as being an electronic musician, Thomas Martiné has finally decided to release simply under his surname instead to hide behind pseudonyms, although his career has a lot of stations to offer. Thomas was back in the days a member of the German Dark Electro duo Silent Invasion, which had its heydays in between 1988 to 1992 with remarkable tape releases („The Picturesque Decay“) and a self-released CD album in 1991 („The Dead Born Content“) under a distribution support of the Danse Macabre label.

After a longer time-out, Thomas returned in 2007 under the playingGOD moniker, a rather Powernoise-oriented project, and he founded Mr. Hilter. Under this controversial discussed project-name he has self-released 10 full-length albums in between 2011 to 2020 stylistically ranging between Industrial, Ambient up to raw Electro- / Harsh-EBM-styles. I have to admit that this project flew at least pretty much under my personal radar. But now Thomas is simply Martiné and he unites the spirit of some mid-90s, lighter Dark Electro artists like Evils Toy, Paracont or Abscess with a Synth- and Futurepop-oriented sound design which here and there reminds on projects like Wave In Head or Minerve. This is of course a free and personally oriented comparison, you may tend to view it differently, but I've completely concentrated on German band projects for this, because Martiné sounds pretty much along the European form of danceable Synth-Electronica and not only because of the usage of the German language on almost half of the 16 tracks.

While the anthracite-colored cover art could lead one to really dark and schizophrenic album, the music outfit of Thomas is lighter than expected. The opener “Wer Ich Bin” is calm and smooth Synthpop tune which gives lyrically some insight on Thomas' personal condition with hints into self-doubts, uselessness, but also the uprising against oppression. “Deus Exodus” turns into a darker mood with its richly and detailed arranged synthesizer pads and an attractive sounding drum-/percussion programming. “Where's your false God now” dashes it loudly out of the loudspeaker system, “Dies Area, Mortem” - I guess, you'll get the message behind this one. It's without doubt one of the highlighting tracks with it's perfect blend between Thomas natural, well-sounding vocal performance to the darker minded Electronica soundscapes, very well done.

People may tend to rate the pure Futurepop-tune “Sturzflug” with a bpm value far beyond 145 bpm as being the ideal dancefloor booster track, while I find it a bit too repetitive. “Dying Of The Light” is another outstanding tune on this album with a more angry and slightly fx-manipulated vocal performance and its stomping kick-drum work. While “Atmosfear” follows a bit too offensive one rhythmic pattern sequence after another in a straight 135+ bpm speed, I am pretty much impressed with the haunting, evolving textures filled with mysterious sounding whispering voice samples of “Innocence Dies”. This is cleverly arranged track with its eerie introduction and the depressive-sounding on-going song progression.

Three of the further tracks, “Original Sin” (available in two different versions produced by Thomas plus a remix contribution by Synaptic Defect), “Cutting Edge” and “The Inevitable Lie” have at least survived Thomas' activity under the Mr. Hilter moniker and have found their place well fitting into this album. It generally has to be said that the track listing works fine on the whole album, as it mixes well between slower and moody tunes to faster, more danceable oriented ones.

To point on a weaker part in Thomas' production process and to come up with a point of criticism, I at first can assure that Thomas' vocal performance is excellent in all terms and mostly all singers / front men of this music genre would be proud to be capable to “sing” and to sound naturally in a comparable style, but... It does not help a track to make it more catchy or easier to recognize again, if chorus phrases get to often repeated in an almost unvaried style There's a fine line between a pleasant accentuation of a chorus line with great vocals before it starts to fall into unnecessary repetitions and Thomas here and there tends to exaggerate it (“Original Sin” or “Leave Me Nothing” for example...).

To sum it up, this is a very nice arranged and diverse sounding Electronica album which balances well between the mentioned music styles. Moreover it brings a sort of a fresh breath into some dusty, one-dimensional Dark Electro music structures and especially friends of the lighter kind with hints to the above mentioned comparisons can't do anything wrong with this album.