CD Review: Faderhead – ‘Horizon Born’

By Editor
By November 5, 2009 September 26th, 2013 CD

Three years ago in an interview Faderhead said that Depeche Mode were “Just playing cosy music for the living room”. That’s funny, because for this EBM maestro, the new EP contains smooth and slow tracks which would fit that environment very well, too…

 

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Indeed the voice and the tune on this are not that far away from the hypnotic and relaxing tones of Depeche Mode. The one-man project Faderhead from Hamburg, Germany, is known for composing very quickly – His hit ‘The Protagonist’ is said to have been created in four hours. Sami Mark Yahya, the man behind the project, calls Slayer and Megadeath his favourites, but his own music until now has been driving EBM club sounds. The new EP ‘Horizon Born‘ intensifies a side of his creative self with which he already started in his last album ‘FH3’. It stays poppy, but has nothing to do with any dance sound.

Horizon Born’ is built on orchestral synthetic string-ensembles which sketches a melancholic but cinematic drama on the acoustical screen. The voice seems to sing with itself in a dialog, one in natural, the other in an answering vocoder tune. ‘Silent Every Day’ becomes even a bit more plaintive and introduces an intimate piano. ‘Taking Pain In Large Doses’ confirms the silent mood with introspective lyrics and beautiful but mournful melodies and minimalist beats. Continuously ‘Ghost Outside These Walls’ follows the stream of sadness, and becomes more catchy with real drums. With ‘Brave’ we are completely immersed within electronics, even the voice gets deformed offering an emotional and fragile vibration. So, all these new tracks stay similar throughout but explore a darker, more thoughtful side to Faderhead’s character. So in summary, these dark sides present beautiful and stylish synth-pop for you to sit and enjoy in your living room while the German rain drops from outside the window.

rating-4

For more information visit the official MySpace.

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