By: Anders

Posted: Jan 31, 2006

I was severely disappointed in Deathstars first album "Synthetic Generation", that was indeed a synthetic album without much meat on it, and quite boring, besides that I was still fighting the loss of Swordmaster, and then to get that "uninspired" music from a bunch of the brilliant musicians and singer, who once were the core of Swordmaster, was more that I could handle, though I still find "Synthetic Generation" a quite useless album. The turn has now come to the band's second effort "Generation Bliss", an album I didn't had many expectations to.

Though it is clear from the start that the band has improved on the song-writing side of the music. The songs are better crafted and are catchier than before and hang on and doesn't let go. The bottom is better and heavier, more fitting for the rest of the musical outputs. The style is still industrial light-gothic metal, with a good deal of "pop" elements, very catchy choruses, and bombastic hooks and so forth. Though the band has made it work on "Termination Bliss" and it is seldom becoming boring. The nice sounding synth, the beats and melodies becomes too much towards the end, as much of it has the same sound throughout the album, though many of the songs are good.

There are some good beats present, some of the synth work is really good and fitting, the vocals are mostly good. There isn't as much great guitar work involved as one could have expected, when it is a man like Nightmare Industries (Emil Nödtveidt) that handles the guitars. The riffs are catchy and quite eatable, though not that inspiring and hard-hitting. The vocals from Whiplasher Bernadotte are mostly good, and the performance is really varied. The production is good and fitting and pushes the music a bit, a bit too laid back at times, though it still compliments the music.

The album is more mature and catches better on to the listener, than I would have expected. There are a lot of light-industrial spheres, a lot of dark gothic rock/pop elements, some 80ties electro pop á la Depeche Mode, some elements which makes one think of Rammstein, and the overall presence of the band is pretty glam-like, quite a blend that takes a little time to soak in. Though when it's there, the listener will be rewarded, a good album that can handle to be heard quite a lot of times, without getting boring, though in the length of the album, it all starts to sound a bit alike, and that's the "flaw" with this album. Start with tracks as 'Blitzkrieg', 'Cyanide', 'Play God', 'The Last Ammunition' and the title track.

Rating: 7/10

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