3 years after the release
of their highly recognized last album “Black Halo” and its
companion “Black Halo Encores”, the German duo Amnistia returns
with a new studio album. “We All Bleed Red” has been a long and
widely promoted item via social media during the last couple of weeks
and months with the intelligent usage of a mouthwatering cover
artwork around this release. Inspired by the works of the French
artist Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré (1832 – 1883), who has
made himself a highly recognized name as a print maker, illustrator,
painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor, the cover art for
„We All Bleed Red“ is pretty much dedicated to the small family
of the Dark Electro music genre.
It's that sort of a mystic, almost
biblical-styled black/white art so typically for this music scene,
quite related to a “Where-Angels-Fear-To-Chainsaw”
Mentallo-/Puppy-an vision. And of course, the white upper-case
letters “Amnistia” accented by the red rectangle has the right
and familiar effect – that's a brilliant and clever realization of
an art idea and works excellent also on shirts. And so “We All
Bleed Red” is available in several different editions: the normal
CD release (limited to 200 exemplars) features 12 tracks.
If not
already sold-out while I am writing this review, there's additionally
available a limited DCD edition in a digipak with a black and a red
disc. This edition is part of the "We All Bleed Red” box-set
and won't be sold separately, with the exception of the digital
download via Bandcamp. The strictly limited box-set features asides
its special packaging with stickers, photos, etc. an exclusive
designed t-shirt and a tape with several live recordings out of their
long career entitled “We've Always Bled Red”. Due to a constant
demand further actions are already in the pipeline: Until the end of
2022 or with the start of 2023 there should be out the release of a
double-LP production of the album with each 100 exemplars in red /
100 exemplars in white vinyls. Contact the band via above given
addresses and ask for availability of their merch and gimmicks around
this release.
Out of tradition with all
Amnistia album releases before, also this album starts with a short
and ominous sounding instrumental tune, “InitNine”. Second track
then gives a first sweat-driving energizer with “Truth / Hurts /
Lie” with its rotating bass line sequences and multiple
steel-/metal-percussion elements. Clearly composed in a classic
verse- / recognizable chorus-manner in their very European-sounding
outfit, this is an ideal and appreciated Amnistia-track which has
become somehow familiar if you've been already into their music.
It
follows the title-track with Tino Claus' rough and painfully
articulated vocals driven by monotonous and rather lofi-oriented
synthesizer arrangements. I've heard already a few critically voices
to this track and also to me this is a new and undiscovered
expression of their music. However I am pretty much excited by this
one. It's not only Tino's tormented vocal treatment – I enjoyed a
lot Stefan Schötz' ability to leave this track in its raw and
analogue-sounding attitude drifting a bit away from their otherwise
invariable perfect production quality.
“The Hook” and “Dark”
are two of their tracks on this album which they've decided to
release as teaser tunes via their Bandcamp resource and both are
drifting a bit closer to the works of some Canadian-based idols. A
clear and intended installed Puppy-an influence especially with the
opulent layered pad sounds on “Dark” as well as with Tino's
Ogre-like vocal performance can't be contested here. With the
mid-tempo tune “E.Y.S.I.D” they give us another perfectly
arranged Dark Electro-track with a clear, almost
“singing-along-the-line” chorus and the tastefully installed pads
and layers – Stefan's programming abilities in a best mode, to me
another highlight of this album.
“Thoughts” increases the speed
again and invites for some dancefloor-action while “Caged” is one
of those earlier released tunes which has received a “fan-made”
video clip by no one else than Martin Sane of the Fix8:Sed8 fame.
“Dissonantia” then is the track which starts to attack the often
proclaimed “Fixi-throne” a bit with its multiple vocal samples
and layered arrangement over the whole track. Two musically surprises
then can be discovered with the both remaining tracks of the main
album. First of “The Sinner” tries to integrate huge sounding,
almost brass-like synthesizer leads as being the driving element. To
me it sounds a bit comparable to some elements out of the
Synthwave-genre, but actually I am not too much fond of this, because
it turns out a bit too repetitive as well as it overtaxes it in the
length of the whole track.
Then comes the album closer entitled
“Dern” - that track which drifts the most away from the usual
Amnistia-style. It's a dark droning, Tribal-inspired instrumental
tune filled with several dark synth lead and pad-sounds, multiple
harsher-than-usual-percussion elements and an overwhelming haunting
atmosphere. Surely an experiment to place such a track into an album
concept, but it acts well here as being the closing title.
If you're not a purchaser
of the box-set you'll have to went over to Bandcamp to pick-up
digitally the content of
the second disc, but it's worth any investment. It starts with a
“Redux” version of “We All Bleed Red” which is compared to
the original interesting from its differently sound rhythm section –
but I nevertheless enjoy the original a bit more. A “Radio Edit”
of “Truth / Hurts / Lie” with a shorter playing time then
follows but adds nothing remarkable new to an overall good Amnistia
track. Then starts a illustrious row of remix contributions with
Fix8:Sed8, Tino Claus' both projects TC75 and ner.ogris, the
Munich-based duo and last years' shooting stars G.O.L.E.M., Placebo
Effect, Mildreda, The Opposer Divine, Pyrroline and Terminal State.
Lots of different sounding interpretations of the original Amnistia
tracks are inviting the listener to dive into the deep and dark see
of this music genre.
Fix8:Sed8's remix on “Dissonatia” roughens
the smoother sounding original with its multiple percussion elements
plus it adds that typical Puppy-an factor to it. Interesting also to
see that the duo of Pyrroline remixes the same track but only under
the usage of the files from Fix8:Sed8 – it's a remix of a remix, if
you like so. Actually that Pyrroline version of “Dissonantia”
sounds to me a bit more elaborated. It's hard to tap on a personal
remix favorite on here as they all offer intelligent produced stuff
which fits well to the whole release, but the surprise belongs to me
personally on Tino Claus' project ner.ogris, as this one gives a much
better constituted remix of “The Sinner”, which shows the hidden
potential behind this track. This remix to me matches the original
composition.
To sum it up and only
concentrating on the 12 tracks of the main album, “We All Bleed
Red” currently still grows on me. There's of course a lot of
potential still to discover and yet I feel myself uncomfortable to
start comparisons to their “Black Halo” album back in 2019, which
is undoubtedly a milestone of the Dark Electro / Industrial music
genre. Since it was relatively quiet in the first half of this year
regarding releases of this special niche in the Electronic
music-driven genre, then this album can be seen as the undoubtedly
highlight so far, while I wouldn't go that far, that this one matches
with “Black Halo”.