Electric Universe - Silence in Action

[abasio]

Artist : Electric Universe

Title : Silence in Action

Label : Planet Ben Records

Released : May 2006

 

Tracklist

 

1. Mind Of God 6:44

2. Tune Up 8:01

3. The Self 8:54

4. Multiverse 7:16

5. Super Position 6:51

6. Science 8:12

7. Electric Universe 7:38

8. The Bomb 7:23

9. Solar Storm 5:35

10. Future Excursions 8:51

 

Well this was quite an impulse buy. I was really curious as too how the new album would sound and when I saw the big wall of this album in HMV I just had to pick it up. So, how is Electric universe's new style? Let's find out.

 

 

1. Mind Of God

 

The album kicks off with some nice sounds and a distorted sample and very quickly a 146 BPM kicks in and one of the better rolling baselines I've heard in a while, unfortunately after a while this is replaced by a much more boring one. It's got loads of energy and would work very well on a dance floor. A very sudden ending is disjointing.

 

 

2. Tune Up

 

Very nice Techy start with a computerised voice sample and nice synths, another 146BPM kicks in and a rather boring baseline does nothing for the track IMO. A sci Fi sample has a very nice sounding voice but quickly gets quite annoying. You can hear something good coming and around 2 and a half minutes a lot of atmosphere struggles to let itself known. Once again this has lots of energy and it progresses quite well, changing and using nice synths, drum rolls and okay melodies. Although at one point after 5 minutes it sounds like he fucked up and couldn't be arsed fixing it.

 

 

3. The Self

 

Follows on from track 3 much more seamlessly than track 2 follows from track 1. It's very similar to Tune Up in that it has nice synths but a crap boring baseline. It sounds identical to the previous one to start but does get a little more streamlined later on. Once again, lots of energy but nothing really makes you want to listen to it. Nothing grabs your attention and it kinda sounds like a lot of other full on. Not a strong track, it sounds MUCH better in the last minute of the track but I'm afraid by that time it's too little too late.

 

4. Multiverse

 

Straight into Generic full on with this track. No intro, no sounds just a fast beat and baseline for over a minute then some disinterested synths which get a little better after a while (Faster and would be awesome on a dancefloor). Quite annoying sample talking about aliens discovering our concepts (boring on the 1st listen just gets annoying on repeated listens) leads into some melody at last. Drum roll please, cleverly dropped, but dropped into a generic full on beat and rolling baseline. Some nice techy melodies and lots of energy once again but it just doesn't stand out from the crowd (and fullon is now a big crowd)

 

5. Super Position

 

More of an intro this time promises more. The start of this track is a lot better than multiverse. Some clever sounds, Great synth work and the baseline is relegated to the background. Unfortunately it becomes a lot more prominent later on. At this point the track seems to lose something and despite valiant efforts (it really does seem to try) it never recovers. Quite boring after a promising start. Nice energy again, would again probably work quite well on a dancefloor. Am I repeating myself? I get that feeling from this album.

 

6. Science

 

Starts of very soft and slow (really disconnected from the track before it) and the beat starts of slower (and Nicer) but gradually gets faster and faster until it drops into a 145BPM. A much better baseline actually sounds pretty cool but OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!!!! Electric guitars they sound absolutely awful. Not used well at all and I was so relieved when they stopped but DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN they start up again and become an integral part of a bloody awful track. I've heard electric guitars used pretty well in some tracks but I'm afraid that boy this ain't one of them. Apart from the guitars (which admittedly get a little better right at the end) it's actually quite good but they totally ruin it.

 

7. Electric Universe

 

A self titled track, usually I get goosebumps at the thought of a track the artist thought was good enough to name after themself (remember slinky wizard - slinky wizard?). This track then, is well placed in the album because it sounds great when you listen to the whole album through. I'm not saying that it's groundbreaking or even very good but it's okay and when you compare it to the drivel that preceded it you breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy it a lot more than if you had heard it on it's own. Imagine listening to britney spears rap, then listen to Skuzi. You realise that it isn't all that bad. There are worse things out there than disappointing music. To be fair though, this is a good full on track. The baseline works well to complement the beat and the synths fit in very well indeed.

 

8. The Bomb

 

They really wanted the self titled track to stand out I think because they sandwiched it between the too worst electric guitar ridden pieces of generic guitar fullon shit I've heard recently. As you can guess by the title this track is crap. Absolute crap. No wait it's not crap it's utter, horrible, disgusting, faeces, eating hot poker through the eye then pour lemon juice into the gaping wound CCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!

It's painfully bad. If you listen to this and you didn't like science then make SURE you skip this. If you thought science was okay then make SURE you skip this. If you thought science was really good then make SURE you skip this. I don't like rating things with numbers but I'll make an exception for this track 0/10. FUCKING AWFUL PIECE OF SHIT! Should be skipped if you listen to it.

 

9. Solar Storm

 

Aaaahhhh!!!! Thank god The Bomb is over. My heads spinning and I'm expecting Solar Storm (even if it's bad) to bring me unimaginable joy. It does If I listened to it on it's own I'd probably think it was bad but it's so much better than what I've just put myself through. Stop. I'm going for a beer, hell it's past lunchtime and I deserve it. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! Now with the memory of the Bomb just a distant nightmare I can fully unappreciate this track. It's not bad but there is once again absolutely nothing that will grab your attention. Boring and generic but as I said, that's such a relief.

 

10. Future Excursions

 

Seamless start from the last track. Starts of nice and slow before the beat kicks in. It's a bit slower at 144BPM and amazingly such a small difference in speed seems to make a big difference in quality. Although after the intro it's a bit boring other than the synths after about 2 minutes and a half it really kicks in with a nice sub beat and a really cool soft baseline and then a very nice strange sounding melody. Rushy sounds in the background and I'm amazed and angry why the hell isn't the rest of the album this good. I have listened to this track on it's own as well so it's not just the relief factor, it's ACTUALLY quite a good tune. Nothing groundbreaking and it's not worth buying the whole album for but it's good full on. A whole album as good as this would have been much more to my liking.

 

 

 

So to some up. If you don't like full on then don't even bother. You'll hate it.

If you do like full on then you should probably check this out. The first few tracks have a lot of really nice ideas, cool sounds and melodies as does the self titled track and the last track. Even if you like full on though you might want to skip through Science and if you value your ears and mind you will have to skip through The Bomb. It's awful.

[abasio]

Sorry

Pressed the wrong button, I'm still writing the rest of the tracks.

 

Edit: Aaaahhhh finished. Never deserved a beer more after just listening to "music"

Edited May 25, 2006 by abasio

[seraph]

Hey, abasio, stunning review of a lousy album...I completely get what you are saying and even I haven't heard this album yet, I know exactly what you mean, I've heard them live few weeks ago and I have never heard anything more stupid, the most generic full on ever with most boring guitars and no melodies. I was so dissapointed that I've left the place with bunch of my friends after half an hour... I could NEVER expect to do that for BORIS BLENN...I mean, WTF happend ?

[abasio]

Hey, abasio, stunning review of a lousy album...I completely get what you are saying and even I haven't heard this album yet, I know exactly what you mean, I've heard them live few weeks ago and I have never heard anything more stupid, the most generic full on ever with most boring guitars and no melodies. I was so dissapointed that I've left the place with bunch of my friends after half an hour... I could NEVER expect to do that for BORIS BLENN...I mean, WTF happend ? 

534888[/snapback]

The ever present and tantalising call of money.

I watched American Idol last night and the big record boss came out to thank the public for helping their first winners first album to sell 10 million copies 10 MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bland copies of other stuff that is popular sells very well in our 'tell me what to do' world.

I can't blame Boris. Money is nice, but he has sold out!

[seraph]

I can't blame Boris. Money is nice, but he has sold out!

 

534893[/snapback]

I blame him, he was modest fella in beginning...

[Time_Trap]

i pretty much agree, as i wrote in the promo thread

generic boring fullon with a few melodic glimpses now and then.

No new sounds, much worse than Cosmic Experience, which was full-onoish but also enjoyable.

and guitars used toootaly wrong :S

[travbrad1001]

Another one bites the dust

[vancbc]

The truth is, most people don't want the kind of music anymore. I have been travelling around eastern Canada on vacation for the past few days and visited with psyheads in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. When I ask about the psy scene and ask if Goa is being played, nearly everyone is saying that it is okay once in a while but that it is mostly old and boring and no one wants to listen to it on a party.

 

Too bad that I didn't discover psy during the peak of Goa trance.

[Time_Trap]

Too bad that I didn't discover psy during the peak of Goa trance.

536536[/snapback]

 

same here

[DETOX]

Same all over i guess...

[abasio]

Too bad that I didn't discover psy during the peak of Goa trance.

536536[/snapback]

But now you can have fun discovering all the old stuff you didn't hear in the peak.

[vancbc]

But now you can have fun discovering all the old stuff you didn't hear in the peak. 

536624[/snapback]

I love discovering all the older stuff, but I'm talking more about being able to attend Goa parties and experience the vibe.

 

Although to be honest, I've only been to one psy party. The music wasn't Goa; but I still had a really good time. It was a small 3-day festival and on the main night Space Tribe was the headliner. I'm going again in a few weeks and Shiva Jorg will be the headliner.

[Halosian]

Ofcourse Silence in Action is different to Electric Unviverses earlier stuff if you compare it to that it might be worse. But if you like me take it for what it is (semi full on) then you might like it. I like it because the energy reminds me of energetic goa and it's melodic. This is one of the best trance albums released the last couple of years. I gave it 9/10 on my first listens but my final verdict is 8/10 because the track Science is really dull and some more variety to the songs would have been good. 8/10, buy it!

[deus_]

The best track for me here is 'Electric Universe'.It think is much better than the others.But again....

[Dez]

I don't think it's as good as their other albums or the type of stuff they used to do, but I don't think they have completely lost their touch. Also I really really liked "science" the guitar track and I think it's up there with their other good guitar tracks like Moonchild or Meteor. I'd give it a 6.5/10... Nothing amazing but nothing horrible either.

 

Also refering to Abasio, what's your point about bringing up American Idol in comparing Electric Universe? I'm no fancy big city lawyer but I seriously doubt that this album well sell a drastic ammount more then their previous albums. For a scene that is still very uncommercialized in comparisent to a lot of other electronic music scenes the psytrance scene sure does a lot of complaining.

[Alex604]

Haven't heard the new album yet BUT they performed live yesterday here in Switzerland, for 3hours, and it was fantastic! Everyone went crazy

 

 

More pics: http://www.dideldum.ch/gallery/thumbnails....album=66&page=1

[abasio]

I

 

Also refering to Abasio, what's your point about bringing up American Idol in comparing Electric Universe? I'm no fancy big city lawyer but I seriously doubt that this album well sell a drastic ammount more then their previous albums. For a scene that is still very uncommercialized in comparisent to a lot of other electronic music scenes the psytrance scene sure does a lot of complaining.

536739[/snapback]

Maybe not but it will probably sell drastically more than a new album in the old style.

Haven't heard the new album yet BUT they performed live yesterday here in Switzerland, for 3hours, and it was fantastic! Everyone went crazy 

 

 

More pics: http://www.dideldum.ch/gallery/thumbnails....album=66&page=1

536917[/snapback]

Wow. What a picture. If you thought that picture was indicitive of great music you should definately buy this album. For everyone else. LOOK at the guitar

[seraph]

I think that he lost it nevertheless...

[Dez]

You never really answered my question. Has his "hardcore" selling out caused him to become a millionaire and have massive ammounts of albums sold? If you can't prove that then don't bring it up.

[abasio]

You can sell out to different degrees. Making music just for sales, be it millions or not is selling out IMO. Feel like a lot of the old school artists who have changed to this new fullon style are doing so just to crack a bigger market (eben if that bigger market isn't HUGE).

I brought up American Idol not as a reference to the artist but the fans of this fullon. They are just like Pop Idol fans who want repetitive music where every album sounds the same. For me MOST fullon sounds very generic. I actually though this album was better than average for modern fullon but still quite dull and uninspiring

[Rumble Pack (Blue Vortex)]

well...really big dissapointment this album. the last one was great...with the new full on touch, but still lot of EU in it.

 

But this is just lot of noize and nothing really great.

 

To the "sold out" thingy i just can say few things. Some ppl still think you can make money with sales of psytrance cds. But these are not the facts. A good psytrance album will sell maybe 3000 copys...maximum and very rarley 5000...

The "normal" cds sell 1000 - 2000 copys...such as EU i guess will sell. So guys forget about the money issue, coz the artist gets around 1 euro per cd...so you think for 1 year work geting 1500 euros instead of 4000 euros does make someone change his own music for money? Forget about it.

Its about trend maybe the artists are following to stay interesting for Organizers..but still imo no psytrance artist make a certain style to make more money, coz if he would do that, he would better do some pop, coz as said, with psytrance you dont make money.

 

Nobody makes this music for sales, because this music doesnt sell!

 

So stop for once this "sell out thingy" its just ridiculuous

 

cheers

[deus_]

As you said,artists don't make music for money,but many of them make music just for bookings so they have to follow the trend.

[D3lirious]

Haven't heard the new album yet BUT they performed live yesterday here in Switzerland, for 3hours, and it was fantastic! Everyone went crazy 

 

536917[/snapback]

Sounds nice...anybody else seen them perform live recently?

[psylove]

It is a good album. Just not for E.U.

If some newbie had released this you would say "Not bad, not inventive, but on the whole this is good music"

 

I'M SICK OF TALENTED ARTISTS RELEASED ALBUMS WITH "I HAVEN'T REALLY BEEN TRYING" PRINTING ON THE FRONT!

 

2006: Year of the shit-house followup album (Safi, Vibe Tribe, Protoculture, Fatali, MFG, Infected (i think its a safe assumption), need i go on?)

[Halosian]

Alex604 (or whoever knows): Does Electric Universe add guitars to more tracks live then whats on record? Or is the live guitar just added to thoose tracks that originally has guitars in them?