List | V/A | 'Sound-Line vol.4' CD 1997

'From Side-Line Magazine'

Track:	Name:	Artist:	Time:
1.	Boundary	A Spell Inside	4:57
2.	Retalliation	Diary Of Dreams	5:43
3.	Spring Radio Edit	Fading Colours	4:03
4.	Cosmic Influence	Children Within	4:17
5.	Home	Evil's Toy	4:39
6.	Burning Angel	In Strict Confidence	4:16
7.	Brain Attack Hypertension	Sleepwalk	5:25
8.	Headweak	Sonar	3:07
9.	Shape Of Rage	Swamp Terrorists	3:51
10.	Growing Stronger The Fuhs Remix	Crocodile Shop	4:27
11.	Breathe Gunhed Mix	Hexedene	3:48
12.	Locust Plague Mix	Spahn Ranch	3:55
13.	Mass Madness	Ionic Vision	3:37
14.	Milky Way	Daily Planet	3:57
15.	Total Body	Electro Assassin	6:25
	Total		66:27

Comments:

This CD is generally less 'industrial' and more synthpop-ish than Sound-Line vol.3. The first track, for instance, is a rather catchy synth pop tune that I can catch myself humming from time to time. Fairly good vocals, although slightly too reminiscent of 80's Italo disco. Good thing the rest isn't in that category. Following that is something that sounds a bit like a synthpoppier and softer copy of Malaise; a bit of goth touch in the vocals and guitars to the synth pop. Catchy, yet forgettable.

If I'm not mistaken, the next band is from Poland. It shows in the accent of the vocals, unfortunately. I would have guessed Finnish or Russian before any other eastern Euoprean country, though. The lyrics are also a bit... um... unrefined. However, voice (not counting pronounciations) is rather good and the music is reasonably catchy, but with a standard drumloop (James Brown, 'The Funky Drummer' - the world's most used drumloop). Since this is the first synth pop act from Poland I've heard so far they get an extra point for that.

Following Poland is Sweden. Three cheers for my homecountry! Unfortunately, it's Children Within. Stop that darn cheering over there. This has got to be one of the worst cases of bad English I've yet to hear on CD. It gives me flashbacks to my English classes in junior high school. It sounds way too much like a Swede, in pronounciation as well as in the lyrics. Too bad that the vocals are of so embarrasingly poor quality, since the music is rather catchy.

Track 5 is another fairly decent yet forgettable synth pop tune, so I won't waste too much time on that. I'll just skip directly over to track 6, which sounds a bit like a mix between Syntec at their best (which still isn't very good) and Bionic (which is considerably more interesting). The style is sort of synthpop/EBM and the song seems to contain samples from the Gulf war CNN shows. Track 7 is also roughly in the same category, although a bit more EBM-ish and with more distorted vocals. Not too innovative, though.

Track 8 is pure noise. Really, it's pure noise. It's a super-distorted sound that loops seemingly infinite, with occasional extra-distorted samples thrown in here and there. This could very well be used to scare off people you don't like. After a while you kind of get into the rhythm of the reoccurring noise; an 'industrial' groove if you like. Listening to stuff like this for a prolonged period of time is almost guaranteed to drive you out of your mind.

Following that is some 'real' music again, in this case with hip-hop beats, scratches, growling vocals and dist guitars - yes, it's the Swamp Terrorists. It's a nice, reasonably catchy tune. I guess I'm a sucker for sampled drumloops and dist guitars.

Track 10 is by a from what I've been told a band with a real cult following, the Crocodile Shop. This track isn't really too exceptional though; dist vocals, compututer speech, up-beat drums, dist guitars etc. Maybe they're usually better than this.

Ah, finally a track that I really like; female vocals, hip-hop beats, dist guitars, all in a nice mix. Catchy tune, with somewhat odd verse melody (a bit oriental sounding). The chorus is mainly a woman going "whooeeee-aaaahh-aaaaaaah-aaah" over a breakbeat. I guess the part about this track that I like the most is the breaks; the guitars and drums suddenly stop and it's just the vocals for a second or so. It's nothing really innovative, but very well done IMHO.

Spahn Ranch is another one of those bands I seem to have heard here and there, but I can never remember what they sound like. Anyway, this track is a fairly melodic EBM-ish track, rather catchy but nothing that excellent. Following that is a track that starts off with a Warner Bros. comics sample ("That's all, folks") that's cut off by a dist guitar. when the actual song starts it's a fairly standard EBM tune with poor vocals and lyrics about TV and how bad that is; even though I partially agree with the lyrics I've heard the same theme done better than this.

Back to Sweden again, this time with Daily Planet. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is one of the catchiest tunes on the CD; it's also one of the blippiest and with the softest vocals. This band has often been compared to a light version of Erasure, and not without reason. This song however is not that much like Erasure IMHO. The singer is one of the Olilla brothers; most likely Jarmo but possibly Jouni, I can't remember which - the one not working with Pouppee Fabrikk, anyway. The one that was in One Hit Wonder.

Finishing off this CD is reasonably standard EBM type tune with whispered vocals; nothing too interesting. I'll just leave it at that. All in all, somewhat less interesting than Sound-Line vol.3.

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