There's one word for this album: drone, and in dark ambient field this means classicity. This album is devoted to the life of abiocen, a life without humanity, a life of pure nature. In the booklet, every track of this album is associated with a pictures and some words of tranquillity and sorrow. "Time is running slower [...] water stopped to run and stream [...]lonely moon is looking at the emptied city [...] heavy steps are slow and brooding [...] shadows coming out of rocks [...] going on and on in circles [...] ice is droning under strain". As the words suggests, the music is a slow moving layers of resonance made out of samples and instruments and, even without escaping the boundaries of the genre, has some good points in tracks like "Restless (Foreboding" and "Restless (Night is Here)" with evocative soundscapes.
This work has nothing new stylistically to offer but has a good choice on musical elements to work with, so could be a good choice for dark ambient fans.

The song are constructed using a minimalistic structure: one line is a repetitive motif, the other is a meditative tune for organ. The result is an album beneath religious and videogames aims. The reference for the classic game is relevant for the comprehension of this album.
"Orpheus" is a sort of manifest for this record: a lovely loop for synth and a calm structure for organ, thinking of Terry Riley. "Golconda" is more reminiscent of the renaissance paintings of the cover, a baroque theme for synth. "A stone among stone" is a classic minimalistic tune. "Counterpoint", for converse, looks at the sounds of the pong game because is a repetitive (or dull) theme for synth. "Adagio" is a wonderful theme for piano developed with a clear process in mind and is the best track of the album, worth of a listen. "Canto" is the specular for the synth and "Fantasie" a curious mix of videogames soundtrack and classic music for harp. The last track "Pong" is the titletrack and the most disappointing track an extremely long track that take a videogame motif repeatedly for minutes, boring.
The life of man is short yet purposeless. Full of delusive hopes, yet true sorrows.
This words are written on the rear cover, and are probably humorous in regards of videogames and take another confusion for an album that stay between a good record and a prank. While is repetitive is sometimes disappointing, but when it develops his tunes this album is worth a listen for all minimalistic fans.

Nuclear Attack is a concept album about the devastation of a Nuclear War. This album, in fact, seems heavily influenced by games like Fallout rather by the words of Oppenheimer and, probably, due to the young age of their author.
This story begins with "you cannot win" an intro to "Nuclear War" an almost dance songs with beats, samples and guitar. "The blast" is a noise track based on siren like sinewaves, "All that remains is..." is an ambient track that tied with "the unquiet place" create a long emotional desert based on radio waves and soundtrack like effects (think at the noise of neon), maybe a little too long but of undeniable effect. "The reawakening" moves on tribal-like territories and "The shapes of things to come" takes the same theme of "nuclear war" to close the album with some sort of happy end (?!?).
This album lacks a true direction, SemeiOn has done a good record but revealing all their influences, seeming more like a descriptive soundtrack. When they will be able to synthesize their own sound merging all the good bits of this records, they could be really a band.
Available through http://semi0n.bandcamp.com/

The new album from this duo is loosely inspired by the works of Enki Bilal and, so, it feature an enigmatic black pyramid in the cover. This canadian duo made a guitar driven drone music that stay between Sunn O))) (in their heaviest moments) and Vidna Obmana (in their quietest).
"Phoenix" starts with a guitar drone that slowly prepares the entering of cosmic synths, "Taurus Ten" instead is pure guitar with atmospherics as support. Black pyramid is pure cinema soundscape that took the listener into "Ursa Major" and "2095". "Ursa minor" is a quiet intro to "Shining" and this album ends with beats as a soundtrack for an escape from something, or an end to a dream.
Although they are not particularly inventive in their writing, Martin Dumais and Julie Leblanc comes with a solid work where sounds are well crafted and evocative. So, even if it's not a masterpiece, it's a nice album for all drone lovers.

23 Tage is the first result of the collaboration between Mona Mur, known for the collaboration with artists such as Einsturzende Neubauten and En Esch ,formerly of KMFDM. They want to create a blend of chanson, indie rock, and avantgarde-darkwave, so this album features several Berthold Brecht / Kurt Weill classics. Practically, it's a rock album in his structure: the voice of Mona Mur is able to lead the tracks and the En Esch's production is solid.
The album start with "Candy Cane" a mix beteween dance beats and rock guitars, then starts the album and this album id full of it. "Die Ballade vom Ertrunkenen Madchen", "120 Tage", "Snake", "Surabaya Johnny" on one side try to create the intended blend of style that, honestly, has some memorable moments. The other tracks, instead, flirts with the dance floor because are into the field followed by KMFDM, just listen to "The Thin Red Line", "Visions and Lies" and "Eintagsfliegen". It seems, in a certain way, more a split than a collaboration: the Mona Mur side (ballad oriented) and the En Esch side (EBM oriented).
However, due to the crafts of the artist involved, this album is a good listening: if only the blend became true, this collaboration could bring a truly great work. This one is just a nice listening, even if above the standard.
p.s.: the advance included also three remix, djs will be happy :-)