This section of the department focuses in on a selected range of titles that we feel should be considered as prospective purchases by music fans into the style of music that this department is promoting. We do this by providing you with detailed, accurate and entertaining reviews of the titles concerned, and make all of them readily available via our on-line store. The selection we offer will mix the new with the old – the known with the unknown and will normally be confined to quality releases. However, just to show that we don’t just say everything is good regardless, and to keep the entertainment levels up, we’ll redress the balance and make the odd exception to the rule by dropping the odd turkey into this part of the shop, giving it a good old dressing down and plucking, just to lighten things up a bit!

Please note: When we feel it necessary, we will compare the music to names that you might be more familiar with. This is done just to help point you in the right direction, but usually we differentiate between the music actually sounding like that other artist or band’s work or just being influenced by it.

Some titles will be given extended reviews with much more in-depth & detailed track-by-track information.

This version can be selected by clicking the ‘more product information’ link at bottom right of first review.

‘Featured Titles’ files will remain in the CD Services on-line shop as long as we feel necessary, or for a period that has been agreed with the musicians concerned. Average ‘up’ time will be 4–6 weeks, then the reviews will be archived in a ‘Reference Library’ partition in the same department, and there they will be accessible to anyone caring to browse, until such a time as they are deleted. The ‘Feature’ can be resurrected for the available titles at any time.

10 track Gothic electronic album with huge orchestral panoramas, a rock rhythm section, tons and tons of synth choirs and harmony vocals, raging guitars (not overly used) and a vocalist that sounds like he’s been on 300 cigs and a bottle of tequila a day for the last ten years! Once you get used to the guttural vocals (and you can, believe me), the music is just astounding. If this was a purely instrumental album, it would be one of the finest of its kind around - As it is, the nearest comparison is a cross between Raison D’tre, Magma & Opeth.

483060
Weight: 150.00 g

Absolutely superb! 8 tracks where the French come into their own in the ‘Heavenly Voices’ stakes, taking it into a whole new dimension. Here we have a gorgeous female vocal soaring through the songs with her high register, crystal clear, smoothly flowing voice, ringing high above the instrumental backing. Musically, it's a really neat mix of folk, medieval and electronic, with a backing from various combinations of violin, drums, bass, synths, hautbois and flutes. The sound is beautifully textured, the mood joyous yet serious and the feel powerful yet atmospheric. Overall, this CD offers a whole new twist on the ‘Heavenly Voices’ genre tale, and puts the name of Cherche Lune up there with the greatest exponents of the genre. – A brilliant album that really can't be faulted.

895813
Weight: 150.00 g

An album of remixes of originals from this ‘Heavenly Vocals’ style band, with the remixers on duty including: Front 242, Assemblage 23, Covenant’s Eskil Simonsson, Love Spirals Downwards, Haujobb, Trance To The Sun, and more. Many of them inject more force and rhythmic power/edge to the proceedings, while others leave the song element more intact, but none of them lose the spirit that makes this band so special. You will hear lashing upon lashing of molten, flowing, string-like and full-sounding multi-synth layers, soaring vocal lines from the celestial female vocalist - sometimes with words, sometimes without, and a huge, towering array of rhythms in various disguises - largely electronic, largely powerful and dynamic but always in keeping with the mood of the piece undergoing reconstruction. For the whole hour and seven, there’s really not a less than amazing and engaging minute on the album, and this is one rare case where mixers and original stand together hand-in-hand. They have intertwined, enmeshed and fused, to come up with new ideas that work a treat, sounding totally alive, organic and fresh. The 13 tracks are produced so incredibly clearly it sounds like the process is underway in your own head or living room, and the music is so addictive, so rhythmically intense, that you’ll be hard pushed to stop playing this for years ahead. For synth, modern 90’s electronic, industrial and ‘Heavenly Vocals’ fans alike, this is one sensational album that you really just have to hear – 100% gem status and no mistake!

297989
Weight: 150.00 g

Well, ‘dark ambient’ can take some twists and turns, but rarely tells a tale as good as this! Right from the opening six-minute salvo of instrumental ambience, we are transported into the blackened realms of ‘The Scapegoat’ where the atmospheres, moods and eerie presence are stamped firmly on your psyche, as you wander through the ghostly world of Coph Nia… A voice intones your fate, your instructions, your thoughts, as you live in fear of what may occur if you don’t comply - He says his piece and allows you to move on, but you quickly become aware that instead of being out in the open, you are surrounded by overhanging tunnels and passageways, as a mix of far-off ghostly voices hang in the air, while the dark ambient electronic space becomes even darker and even more oppressive, but at the same time, this is one hypnotic experience that gives you the courage to continue. With the voices and screams, a mix of farther a field, and then suddenly closer, you see a shaft of light in the distance and head towards it. At the end of the passageway you come across a huge monastery, and you enter to the sound of chanting monks amid deep space bass, cosmic synths, as the ceremony begins. You clasp your hands and kneel – suddenly a gorgeous female voice shatters the darkness; you are captivated by this mix of voice and delicate guitar rising out of the gloom like a phoenix from the ashes. It’s all so atmospheric, so addictive and here you are only a third the way through the album. This is a magical sixty-three minute, 8 track experience that mixes dark and light, oozes mood and feel from every fibre and is the sort of thing you just have to listen to as an enjoyable experience from start to finish. A classic.

403164
Weight: 150.00 g

Industrial super-trio comprising members of Front 242, Cubanate & Nitzer Ebb deliver a magnum-opus that puts industrial metal at the forefront of genuinely exciting, new music for the Y2K. Mixing the best elements of rock, industrial, techno, electronics and metal, they have created a monster – one that ravages everything in its path with napalm-fire on its breath. I defy you not to get an adrenaline rush from the opening track ‘Brutal’ – the hairs on the back of your neck will stand to attention as you listen to this exciting beast - Turn it up loud and you’ll drown in a sea of electronics, drums, samples and vocals. From track 2: ‘I Die Tomorrow’, all that follows is just as jaw-dropping – 8 more tracks with an incredibly crisp production, clear sound and arrangements that are pure multi-layered blasts. This is a set of REAL industrial songs that drive, surge, soar and power their way to the depths of your soul, touching all your key emotions on their way, producing a feel-good factor eleven on the scale of one to ten. Whether you’re a rock or metal fan with a love for electronics, or just an out an out industrial fan, this just has to be on e of the finest of its type, blowing away its more well-known compatriots who seem to get all the press, but can’t produce anything as apocalyptic as this - Dive in and be impressed!

228944
Weight: 150.00 g

This is a genuine industrial ‘Heavenly Vocals’ album to rave over, and it comes in a lavish fold-out dig-pak. Now, in the past, the bulk of the good stuff was split among the Hyperium and CMI label material that you all seemed to rave about, plus the Prikosnovenie albums that seemed to be more varied, wide-ranging, mature and more of an acquired taste. Now there’s Dark Sanctuary - a French band that you think may have emanated from the home of the latter, but they have actually turned in an album on the Wounded Love label, that sounds like it would be more at home on the former. Within its seventy-three minutes playing time you’ll hear vast layers of organ chords, synth strings, deep rumbling bass and percussive splashes, above which miles and miles of heavenly female voices soar and swoop, rise and fall, as the huge panoramic production ranges from pastoral to powerful. The 13 tracks possesses a spiritual flow and structure that puts it right up there with the best this genre has to offer, and in terms of the sort of album it is, anyone who wants it richly textured, symphonic, not overtly heavy, atmospheric and emotive, this will delight and surprise you for a long time to come.

455259
Weight: 150.00 g

The giveaway here is in the album promo sheets, stating something along the lines that the band was making ever more difficult music for difficult sake, and it now seemed right to return to something that had at least some semblance of musical worth. It’s true - their last album sounded SO disjointed and obscure, with practically no musical merits to it all. So, before they ended up appealing to just a handful of zonked-out admirers, the band now redress the balance and come up with ‘Effector’, which is totally splendid - something that took me by surprise, I can tell you! It’s a wickedly rhythmic soup of electronics, drums, synths, electro drums, sound effects, samples, sequencers and more synths - A most potent brew of menacing, surging, soundscapes that weave all sorts of solid paths to that glorious holy grail that was all but lying in the far distance at the time of the last album. And what a journey you have to take to get there as nothing is familiar, including the melodies – yes, there are melodies, and plenty of them – but the arrangements are extraordinarily complex and not at all anything that you can readily compare to anyone else in the field. It’s a mix of ‘Synth’ and ‘Industrial’ that I suppose, if you HAD to liken it to something, falls firmly at the door of Rhys/Fulber and their arsenal of projects. Either way, it’s nearly all instrumental and addictive rhythmically, but there’s so much going on you’ll need several plays to take it all in. 9 emotive tracks that are full of atmosphere, solid as a rock but flowing like a river - This is the best album I’ve ever heard from this band and yes, it really is THAT good.

466017
Weight: 150.00 g

Confused? You should be! First they are an EBM band, then they become a searing industrial metal band (albeit with more synths than most), then on the two ‘Cryogenic Sessions’ CD’s they are heard as an all-instrumental outfit producing monumental synth-dominated tracks. So, where to now? Well, on the evidence of track 1: ‘Haloed’, it’s brooding terror that’s running through their veins, as a positively melodic (for them) song is revealed with low-down hushed vocals and sounding suitably evil. A huge musical landscape emerges, composed of massed synth layers, crushing slow drums, deep dark bass and an atmosphere that befits its largely mid-paced flow. Things liven up considerably on track 2: ‘Dead Planet’ as their muscular brew of modern EBM kicks in and beats, with rhythm synths, samples, vocals, bass and all go crazy with a wild slice of industrial keyboard-dominated techno-rock unfolding apace. Much of the remaining 8 tracks on the album mix these two styles with predominantly treated vocals giving that all-important air of restrained evil/anger, while the music is full of keyboards, bass and drums (mostly the electronic variety). More studied than before, some would say altogether more mature, this is sixty-eight minutes of heavy, slow to mid-paced industrial music in a similar vein to the excellent latest release by C-Tec, and it is very much a grower.

657034
Weight: 150.00 g

Seventy-two minutes of semi-vocal, dark, gothic industrial music with a mix of drums, synths and electronics, some with solid arrangements. With tracks averaging at around eight-ten minutes (one clocks in at thirteen), Glod mix deep, dark classical gothic electronics with choral voices and the odd bit of song, to produce the sort of album you don’t play alone on a dark night. Despite the unnerving nature of the beast, it’s pretty full sounding; quite heavy in the dynamic sense and loaded with musical layers that pound their way expertly into your head.

611665
Weight: 150.00 g

‘Heavenly Vocals’ time and here we have a contrast – one female voice that’s light, sweet and emotional over a rumbling tremor of guitars, bass and drums - sort of like a garage-rock Renaissance, but just awesome. The girly style vocals sit neatly upon acres of chiming guitars and flowing rhythms, with lyrics clear and upfront, and the production bringing the vocal up in the mix rather than burying it, as so often happens. Comparisons? Not easy as it’s seriously varied: piano-guitar ballads at one end, surging panoramic tidal waves of the instruments at the other, while all the time the sweet female vocal flies effortlessly overhead. I’ve not really heard anyone quite like this because there are few hooks, despite plenty of melodies, so I suppose the nearest is a grungy Kate Bush/Annie Haslam – make of that what you will, but it’s 11 tracks/48 minutes of good stuff.

212931
Weight: 150.00 g

With 30 tracks, quite a lot of which are exclusive to this album, here you’ll hear the sound of female vocals – loads of them! They come in a variety of modern electronic settings, from trance through string-laden heavenly and soaring gothic classical to darker and generally more intense offerings, this is a ‘must’ for anyone into ‘Electronic’, ‘Industrial Electronic’ music and female vocals. There is a consistently high quality of delivery, writing, arranging and structure to all 30 tracks, covering areas that are predominantly melodic and rhythmic, but multi-layered and textured. The music will hold your attention throughout - It’s not wispy or wimpy, there’s nothing like Enya on here; instead it’s a lot more flowing, solid, soaring and exotic, mixing the powerful and serene, classical and electronic gothic to great success. The sound of female vocal-led groups in a perfect setting and at a great price too.

590547
Weight: 250.00 g

Ah yes - the return of those excellent people at Voltage, the home of some of our finest industrial electronic albums of a few years back. They start with a real stunner, in the form of an album of nearly all-exclusive tracks. Predominantly electronic, with guitars few and far between (although from these power levels, you’d never guess!), this is a roller-coaster ride through worlds of furious and fierce, brooding and on fire, highly charged industrial gems from the likes of Hyperdex-1-Sect (Biotek alter-ego), who open proceedings with nearly nine minutes of classic rampaging, Clock DVA, Electro Assassin, Attrition, Sheep On Drugs and more, with every track a gem – even the ones you wouldn’t have thought would fit! Musically, a lot of ground is covered, from ‘EBM’ through to muscular drum ‘n’ bass and acid trance, with vast slabs of sound textures, ethereal effects and dark rhythms. There are 10 tracks featured in this sixty-five minute disc – Powerfully rhythmic, multi-layered, multi-textured industrial electronic gems. It’s got the lot and, despite being full-price, is worth every penny.

943628
Weight: 150.00 g