You hear it here first,the new Covenant almost a month before it even hits the streets here! Telling from this CD,I think Covenant got tired of the backlash it got from the constant clubplay,and people labeling them as a pop group,or even worse the dreaded "Future Pop" label. It seems they stripped away some of the danciness, and traded it for a more funky direction and more serious lyrics to go with the more minimal mood. There are only two kinds of Covenant fans: ones who've heard them on the dancefloor and those who've actually heard one of their CD's. The prior tend to label them as a dance group,just as they do VNV Nation,and forget their meaning completely. "Monochrome" kicks in with a slow ambient backdrop to set in Covenant's signature dance style slowed down significantly. The vocals style is kinda hip-hoppish a bit,firing rapid fire metaphors back and forth. "Calling all Ships to Port" is the club single,but again very slow and drizzled with more of a melancholy mode reminiscent of VNV Nation a bit. My favorite would have to be "Promethius", which has a nice minimal bass kick and very charismatic singing. "We Want Revolution" is like a trip back to the 70's funk era, with a Covenant tinge! Very interesting, kinda sounds a bit like an anthemic Outkast, a song that brings to my mind roller rinks and discos. Or call me weird, but remember Ci-Lo's "Closet Freak"? Yeah the resemblence is there! So in short this is alot closer to Kraftwerk than their "pop-star with dignity" image of "United States of Mind". You can dance to it, but I think alot of future poppers expecting another "United States...." will be disappointed. Those into their progress of sound and style go ahead and grab it October 8! Rating:9.

This second Cesium 137's single has been released after their first album titled "Advance/Decay" and it represents a sort of celebration of what the band reached in such a short time. This new single contains four new versions of the main track, the album version and a beautiful new track titled "Bloodletter" which is a good example of energetic 80's ebm orientated track with catchy melodies and arrangements (the memorable riff and the synth bleeps will get you to dance without even noticing)... Of the remixed versions of "Regrets" I prefer the Yendri Mix (it's a shame I hadn't the opportunity to listen her new album yet!) because I like how her changed the melodic lines without twisting the song's structure. Instead the "Haujobb - The 1k Mix", "Kbn-Colony Of Zooids Mix" and the "Quiet Eye-Red Eye Mix" versions tend to dilate the track's structure basing themselves on the rhythmic impact: they are always interesting but you know how much I love good melodic and powerful songs. Along with the MCD you can also find a good video of the main track where you can see also the band playing in their own basement! ;)

Seven tracks for 50 minutes of beating industrial with harsh drum machine constructions. OverVoltage bet on songs built upon only rythmic compositons, sometimes entering on techno territories ("Transmitter"), but this means a limit for this cd. Often the song evolution is too much scholastic and little various, expecially in the first two tracks, "Kanci" and "Scheduling", where the drum march is so much fast as boring. Things get better with the syncopatic movements generated on the fifth track "Lodki", but the real top track of the album is "Belaruzer ver.b" with a interesting progress and an intelligent superimposition of sounds. With this track of eleven minutes OverVoltage show that they are able to create passages worthy of praise, but this is too much little to save this work from boredom.

Eric Kesner has been playing guitar for over a decade, but debuted with his solo project True Colour of Blood only last year, with this release on Andrea Marutti (of Amon/Never Known fame)'s cdr label AFE, and "Awakened. To Never Sleep Again" on Soulworm Editions. TCOB delivers some excellent ambient music which is generated almost only by guitars and effects. There's only some limited drum programming (on "Forlorn") and tape manipulations, and that's it. But Kesner's sound palette is incredibly rich and sometimes one wonders how these tracks could be played with such (apparently) limited tools. Some tracks, like the opening "Demergo Abyssus", are dark and obsessive, with menacing drones and suffocating atmospheres, while others (notably "Zophos" and "Twilight State Dream") have a more melancholic cosmic feel - not that far from some of Never Known's works, to stay in the AFE family... Layout is excellent, with stones and fossils photos printed on high quality cardboard - well done and professional looking. My only quibble is with the mix. While being excellent for a 4-track recording, I think it has too many basses and that some higher frequencies got lost in the way. A clearer mix would have made this perfect, but anyway, this is a very recommended release.

Co-released by Amon/Never Known's AFE and Leeza's Moonfear (web.tiscali.it/leeza), Kabal's cd-r is a very interesting work which manages to keep your attention focused despite being very long (13 tracks, 70 minutes). Actually, all tracks - even the apparently more minimal and repetitive ones - show great taste in assembling layers of rhythms and melodies and subtly varying the patterns before they become redundant. Kabal seems to prefer nocturnal, slightly obsessive atmospheres, in a classy electronica/IDM which reminded me of Autechre, Future Sound of London and A034 The Insider, another Milanese musician contiguous to Kabal's genre... while never stepping in paranoid fields, and often taking a breath with more relaxed tracks like "Atrial 222" or "Free Bong - Cyhexatin mix", which even reminded me of Kraftwerk due to its nostalgic synth melodies... Excellent layout based on almost abstract photos of crashed cars and metal rubbish.