The Ultimate Architects - Kyuss9 (guitar and keyboards), D'Architect (vocals, keys, programmings) and [f.] (bass, keys and backing vocals) - are a Portuguese trio born in 1996, but only recently surfaced with a self-titled promo ep, followed by a series of concerts and compilation appearances. This is their official debut mcd, and obviously a lot of work went into it: packaged in a lavish 3-panel digipack, it features 5 tracks plus a multimedia part with videos, live clips, bio/discography and a bonus remix by Sci-Fi Industries. They definitely care about visuals, but the disc would have been nice also for the music only. The Architects play melancholic synth/electro-pop with roots in dark-wave ("The Pain") and that great "I'm so depressed I'll make you dance"-feel that is typical of '80's pop - meaning that the music always has a sad feel to it, but is also catchy as hell. While there's room for improvement in the vocal department, the melodies are quite memorable, and the songwriting is solid, both with medium- ("Neon moon", the instrumental "Nebula"), fast- ("Endorphine", my fave one) and slow- ("The Pain") paced tracks. I'm not an expert of this musical genre, but this is a very enjoyable ep.