Published by Alessandro Violante on August 26, 2017
2017 has been an amazing year for EBM, from the roaring waves of analogue coming from the likes of Youth Code and Multiple Man to the return of Kontravoid, an american Body Music heavyweight, and the breakthrough of modern cyberpunk in mainstream music and pop culture.
Akalotz, a traditional EBM duo coming from one of the birthplaces of the Industrial movement, Germany, take influence from early EBM bands, such as the heavy basslines of Die Krupps, the punchy drumming of DAF, and taking vocal influence from Front Line Assembly‘s earlier work, Akalotz are a two man EBM tank, in every sense of the phrase.
This new album, titled very propery Confront, is a 70+ minute body STORM, and drops the deep atmospheres of their early works, while retaining the bass-centric structure and the machine like rhythms. Thorsten‘s voice is everything you would expect and want from a band bringing forth the spirit of authentic EBM, its sweaty, its pained, and its muscular. The synthesizer work is equally brilliant at times, utilizing layered bass rhythms and grooves, combined with atmospheric metallic percussion to create a confrontational factory dancefloor atmosphere.
This album takes the formulaic qualities of EBM, and turns them upside down, with the stark bass complexities found on Warzone, which would remind some of the heavily layered bass grooves in earlier Vancouver based EBM, the pained cries of a lonely soldier in Rapt Tears, the harsh electro beats on Escalate to Dominate, which while minimal make the most and turn analogue drums into churning industrial machines, or the old-school repetitive fury of the closer, Exit, which uses the staple sounds of earlier european EBM and shares similarities with the early Electro Body stompers from Die Krupps and DAF, while making use of a solid progression both melodically and rhythmically as to not break monotony.
Confront is a hot piece of iron, straight out of the Old-school Electro furnace. It is a must have for anyone wanting their brains to be punched by some hard muscular beats, and for those wanting to get some sweat on those boots. Akalotz have created one of the first “authentic” EBM albums I personally have enjoyed in a while, and it’s always nice to turn on when I feel like being ran over by a sweaty, muscular musical tank. This 70 minute tank of an album is for anyone more akin to the cleaner EBM of Front Line Assembly or Die Krupps, but wants something layered and complex in the mix as well.
Pros: Fantastic basslines, relatively creative melodies, dark but positive lyrics, and infectiously catchy songwriting.
Cons: Becomes monotonous at points due to the lack of variety in beats, most songs utilizing 4/4 dance beats, Awake the Force has some poor execution of ideas and comes off as a failed experiment.
Label: Electro Aggression Records
Rating: 7