{"id":812,"date":"2008-01-11T22:43:55","date_gmt":"2008-01-11T21:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/?p=812"},"modified":"2008-01-11T22:43:55","modified_gmt":"2008-01-11T21:43:55","slug":"alec-empire-the-golden-foretaste-of-heaven-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/?p=812","title":{"rendered":"alec empire &#8211; the golden foretaste of heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content=\"text\/html; charset=iso-8859-1\"> <META content=\"MSHTML 6.00.6000.16544\" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE><\/STYLE> <\/HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>i&#8217;ll start off by admitting that i have always been  aware of alecs <A  href=\"http:\/\/eat-your-heart-out.com\/docs\/ALEC_EMPIRE_BIO.pdf\">history<\/A>, but  until this album dropped on the mat @ <EM>ireallylovemusic<\/EM> hq, i had never  had the (dis)pleasure of hearing any of his previous music. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>this oversight was often due to the fact that the  descriptions, even when the reviews were glowing, would make me concerned for my  mental health should i ever be exposed to the extreme digital noise that alec is  renowned for.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>however, this album is like a year zero release for  alec, and very listenable it is to.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>despite the fact the such phrases as industrial,  noise, distortion, anger, difficult can easily be applied to each of the albums  10 tracks.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>apparently, for this first release on alecs new  label,&nbsp;<EM>eat your heart out, <\/EM>he has decided to make an album that is  chocka with&nbsp;singing in a style that&#8217;s not too far from the spoken  rant-n-sing of <STRONG>mark e smith<\/STRONG>, which is a little weird when the  music is often a mutated variant of&nbsp;electro, with the constant appliance of  <\/FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>acid squelches, distressed analogue noise  (synthetic or guitar),&nbsp;and pounding drum machines.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>thankfully though, amongst the soul baring  negativity are some tunes. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>oh yes. tunes.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>for a start, album opener, <EM>new man, <\/EM>will  have <STRONG>gary numan<\/STRONG> fans biting hard&nbsp;being a direct update of  garys use of dark moods and cheap synths. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>whereas several tracks such as&nbsp;<EM>if you live  of die, <\/EM>ups the <STRONG>nine inch nails<\/STRONG> connections with its  processed guitar chords. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>not all of the songs work so well, especially  towards the end of the 43 minutes as the words become increasingly direct and  difficult listening. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>a warm hearted love album this is not.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>the decidedly cold atmosphere of <EM>bug on my  windshield (&#8220;i don&#8217;t wanna be with you&#8221;) <\/EM>is matched by a intensely sparse  combination of electro-bleeps and thin and crispy drum machines, leaving the  grand finale to be a drawn out noise treated bass riff over which alec drones on  about <EM>a fire killing out the both of us<\/EM>, pause for dramatic effect,  <EM>slowly<\/EM>. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>ooooh, the old romantic.&nbsp;<\/FONT><FONT  face=Arial size=2>except, rather than this sounding like a reach out to another  soul, it sounds like some form of homage to the evil twists of angst ridden  revenge.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>still, despite these concerns, there is no denying  that the album is a cracking blast of testosterone fuelled, straight to the  central nervous system, electronic rock, that when in the right frame of mind,  will entrall and pump up the adrenalin and emotions of many a listener,  <\/FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>thus proving that not all music that comes out of  berlin, the city in which alec recorded this, is of a minimal techno meandering  type.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><EM>more detail<\/EM> : <A  href=\"http:\/\/eat-your-heart-out.com\/\">here<\/A><\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BODY><\/HTML><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>i&#8217;ll start off by admitting that i have always been aware of alecs history, but until this album dropped on the mat @ ireallylovemusic hq, i had never had the (dis)pleasure of hearing any of his previous music. this oversight was often due to the fact that the descriptions, even when the reviews were glowing, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}