"I am torn between rage and melancholy", so the introducing quote of PAINBASTARD-musician Alex P. – and he has never pointed this out that clear. With a strictly separation of the track list for his new album "Borderline" in 9 "Rage"-tracks and 5 "Melancholy"-tracks afterwards, you’ll get a glimpse of what to expect. So the first tracks are sort of those Harsh EBM-smasher tracks with straight-forwarding dancefloor-compatibility and rough distorted vocals. But what happens here? The first 5 tracks give a frightening impression that the musically development drives PAINBASTARD more and into that Hellectro rush. Why? Was it necessary to copy the same and repetitive sounds over and over again, like so many acts did and still do? These tracks are sounding that unspectacular as they’d been produced in a rush – technical and compositionally no complaints, but the PAINBASTARD-signature is completely missed. Track 4, "Hope Dies Last", is a collaborative effect with Nemrod of the band DEMENTI providing the guest vocals. What works well and common at the verses, ends in a fiasco in the refrain, because this track drifts musically into pure embarrassment, so that no vocalist available on this world will be able to service a useful performance – the weakest track of this whole album. Luckily the average part finds an end and this album continues in that expected sort and style. "A Fool In Love" at least comes out how I was hoping to hear it in the first 5 tunes. Multiple synth layers, harsh vocals, but still well placed in the mix and a high recognition value. The epic kind to offer thick and well-worked out synth layers, at times melodious, at times ominous provided, has always been the most attractive part in the multiple arrangements of Alex. This counts also for the next both tunes "Web Of Lies" (what a bass line!) and "Madhouse Earth" – the latter with some reductions. Finally the talented duo of AMNISTIA (look for our interview with them somewhere else here...) offer a remix on the title track with rather old-school EBM bass lines and a solid kick and snare work – it punches the original by light-years. Coming to the "Melancholy"-part of this album, which at least doesn’t mostly sound that melancholy like expected in the first instance. It’s quite courageous to offer a reinterpretation on Ludwig van Beethoven’s "Mondscheinsonate" – an EBM version with EBM-like instruments on a classic tune. Also "Liebe, Die Verbrennt", another instrumental tune sounds a bit like adopted from this classic composition – and so it is, it is a new interpreted part originally based out of the "Mondscheinsonate". Both best tracks are also placed in this section: "Parting from You" starts calm with nearly natural sounding vocals and an orchestral-sounding arrangement, until the mood turns to a cold and bombastic-sounding Dark Electro-tune. Last but not least, the mid-tempo-track "Beyond All Borders" clocks over 7 minutes and documents the outstanding end of this album - what a fine programming on this track, excellent! Nearly 75 minutes of audio, but it features 25 minutes of a black-out – the more I listen to the second part of this album, the more misunderstanding grows in me by checking once again the first 5 tracks. Maybe a remix companion release can bring back some more magic to it.