Jonathan Hill

Tag: Synthpop

  • Lights The Listening Review

    General Information:

    Artist: Lights
    Album: The Listening
    Genre(s): Electronic
    Subgenres(s): Synthpop
    Released: 2009
    Length: 43 minutes
    Language(s): English
    Label(s): Universal Music, Sire Records

    Track List:

    01. Saviour
    02. Drive My Soul
    03. River
    04. The Listening
    05. Ice
    06. Pretend
    07. The Last Thing on Your Mind
    08. Second Go
    09. February Air
    10. Face Up
    11. Lions
    12. Quiet
    13. Pretend (Reprise)

    Lights The Listening Cover
    Lights The Listening Cover

    Lights The Listening Review

    The Listening is the debut album of Canadian synthpop solo artist Lights. It is a low key outing that puts her voice, which is so sickly sweet that it could give you diabetes, at the front and centre of each song. This isn’t inherently a bad thing but the music itself can feel secondary at times and this approach leads itself into a by-the-numbers result when looking at this in the context of a full album.

    Saviour introduces the listener to The Listening and sets the tone nicely while also making use of auto-tune software that isn’t necessary because Lights has a voice that should be able to stand on its own merits. It is also prominent on the title song and its use might simply be a by-product of the pop trend for auto-tuning voices that arose in the mid to late 2000s. All but two songs are under three and a half minutes long so their shortness will lend itself to a good amount of replay value on individual songs rather than as a whole album.

    Both Pretend and The Last Thing on Your Mind take on a downbeat mood and feature an acoustic guitar which adds to the sincerity of the performance with the latter breaking out of the mould further by having a distorted guitar playing in the crescendo to the finale. This also has Lights singing far more intensely over a comparatively rapid paced beat and makes it a standout moment for the album. Being placed in the middle of the album, it is a good way to break up the pacing although it would have made for a better closing song.
    Lights sounds rabid in her choppy delivery of the second verse of Ice and combined with the frantic synthesiser part that follows it, it quickly becomes a stand out moment like Pretend (Reprise), a reimagining of Pretend as a piano ballad that strips away all of the polish associated with the synthpop sound and gives a glimpse into another side to Lights.

    Many listeners will undoubtedly be won over by Lights’ voice alone but since The Listening has Lights and her co-producers working within certain parameters and only ever tip-toe across the line, which is what yields some of their best results, it shows that there is room for growth.

    Performers:

    Lights: Vocals, production (all tracks)
    Thomas Salter: Production (tracks 1–3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14, 15)
    Dave Thomson: Production (tracks 4, 7–9, 12, 16)
    The Angry Kids: Additional production (track 15)

    External Links:

    Lights Homepage
    Lights on Wikipedia
    The Listening on Wikipedia

  • Mortiis The Smell of Rain Review

    General Information:

    Artist: Mortiis
    Album: The Smell of Rain
    Genre(s): Electronic
    Subgenres(s): Synthpop
    Released: 2001
    Length: 51 minutes
    Language(s): English
    Label(s): Earache Records

    Track List:

    01. Scar Trek/Parasite God
    02. Flux/Mental Maelstrom
    03. Spirit in a Vacuum
    04. Monolith
    05. You Put a Hex on Me
    06. Everyone Leaves
    07. Marshland
    08. Antimental
    09. Smell the Witch

    Mortiis The Smell of Rain Cover
    Mortiis The Smell of Rain Cover

    Mortiis The Smell of Rain Review

    The Smell of Rain is the 6th studio album by Norwegian solo artist Mortiis. This also marks the first and only entry of “Era 2” Mortiis in which he makes an unexpected transition from dark ambient music to synthpop.

    This is also the first album wherein Mortiis assumes the role as lead vocalist and while he doesn’t possess the same vocal range or confidence that comes along further into his career, it’s not enough to outright dismiss his performance either. He also enlists additional vocalists including Sarah Jezebel Deva, of Cradle of Filth and Therion fame, for dramatic choral and solo arrangements that are laced together with straightforward distorted guitar work.

    Scar Trek/Parasite God addresses contempt for God as Mortiis decries peoples willingness to “…sacrifice themselves/to the locust master, to the one that drowned the world” while saying “yet they crucify me,” presumably for having a simple difference of opinion on theological concerns. Many of the lyrics in other songs revolve around themes of alienation and angst while the final song, Smell the Witch, is more fantasy themed and less detailed in its narrative by comparison.

    This is then followed by a two-part song found in Flux/Mental Maelstrom and Spirit in a Vacuum, which adds up to nearly 12 minutes between them, showing that Mortiis hasn’t lost his penchant for longer compositions in their entirety just yet. The long durations of many songs found on The Smell of Rain is also a point of contention due to the fact that they simply don’t need to be as long as they are and a more refined approach would have gone a long way in streamlining the overall presentation of the album.

    Monolith breaks the synthpop framework for a dramatic piano and percussion driven number that brings the distorted guitar to the forefront for the bridge of the song and Everyone Leaves is a depressing synth-driven ballad that shows Mortiis at his most defeated as he describes the futility of loss found in the refrain in which he states “everyone leaves. In the end. Everything dies. In the end. It doesn’t matter how hard you hold on.” The build-up in the last minute of the latter song is merciful after around 6 minutes of mope but this song is easily the most stretched out.

    Thankfully Mortiis bounces back from Everyone Leaves, particularly on Antimental and Smell the Witch. Both songs feature a cello and violin combined with the synthpop sound Mortiis has crafted but they are far more dramatic and intense than the other songs found on this album. The ending of the final track (Smell the Witch) is sudden but fitting and it will leave you with a good impression of The Smell of Rain, which will have undoubtedly alienated plenty of long-time Mortiis fans on its release but it is an important step in his musical evolution.

    Performers:

    Mortiis: Lead vocal, keyboards, synthesizers, synth programming, drum programming
    Martina Binder: Additional lead vocal
    Sarah Jezebel Deva: Vocal harmonies, soprano vocals
    Mika Lindberg, “Raptor”, Suvi-Tuulia Virtanen: Alto vocals
    Chris A: Guitars
    Alzahr: Bass
    Staffan Wieslander, Asa Anveden: Cello
    Cecilia Lindgren, Johanna Wetter: Violin
    Frederik Bergstrom: Tympani, percussion

    External Links:

    Mortiis Homepage
    Mortiis on Wikipedia
    The Smell of Rain on Wikipedia