Release Date: 1992
Song Count: 12
Duration: 41 minutes, 40 seconds
Rating: 7.7/10
Description:
Song Count: 12
Duration: 41 minutes, 40 seconds
Rating: 7.7/10
Description:
A leap to the past is upon us with Love Is Colder Than Death, a German darkwave band with their second album Mental Traveller. A piece of timely ethereal music from the '90s, the contents of this album find themselves submerged under a dark and mysterious energy that sets the mood for an otherworldly listening experience. The more precise term for the specific subgenre the band and its releases from this point forward is neoclassical darkwave, since it combines the conventions of shadowed electronic music with traditional instruments for a classy feel.
Vocalist Susan Heinrich's distant voice expressing emotions of pain and burden takes over the further brooding sound tapestry as the instrumentation, consisting of both classic elements like strings and brass instruments as well as more electronic sounds, preserves its gentle nature and invokes an almost vintage-sounding effect in the way its different moving parts are implemented. With a tinge of sonical dramatics and making full use out of reverberated, full sounds that makes the music sound especially of its time, it scratches a particular musical itch that the subcultural scenes its likes are associated with, such as goth music enjoyers, have expressed a need for since their very dawns.
A highly enchanting and atmospheric album, Mental Traveller is a solid, well-made example of its kind with distinct and creatively structured songs and an energy that simply stands almost unmatched by anything else one could ever witness in this medium of art. Older music that heavily leans into the elements that make it sound of its time can feel tacky if overexerted in a way that does not match the album's spirit otherwise, but that is not the case with this piece at all - from the mesmerising vocals and the methodical backdrop to the foggy, moonlit sound that comes out of it all coming together, everything here synergises into one impressive album. It radiates the energy of walking through a remote cemetery in the middle of the night, with ravens chirping in the background and the sound of the wind rushing through the leaves of nearby forest trees as one is on a mission to discover a veiled secret by learning about the fallen souls of the place. Definitely a record to mentally sink into and lose oneself in.