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Review Summary: Stylistically a Difficult Album to Pigeonhole Album Summary
Absurd Minds is an example of a band that has mellowed over the years and still retained their fanbase. Their earlier work can be played comfortably next to their stylistic cousins, Project Pitchfork. But they changed their style in a way similar to the change R.E.M. underwent when they released Automatic For the People, when R.E.M. left upbeat tunes like “Shiny Happy People” behind them. With Absurd Minds’ previous album, Tempus Fugit, they introduced a noticeable melancholy and slowing of tempo, and has -- in the opening tracks anyway -- an Electronic New-Age feel that reminds me very strongly of a gloomier version of Enigma’s sensational 1990’s hit “Return to Innocence,” only substituting sad, Middle-Eastern singing and flutes and a plucked guitar-instrument (an instrument called an oud?) for the upbeat Polynesian singing that opens the Enigma song.
Absurd Minds carried some of the melancholy over to our album, Sapta, but without the Middle Eastern spices. That’s not very good news for me personally, since Classical is about the only slow music I listen to, but it might be good news for the average lover of electronic music. If you’re not familiar with Absurd Minds, the songs come off as – I’m speculating here since I can't know how YOU perceive music – maybe a modernized variety of New Wave and Post-Punk songs like those from, say, New Order, or maybe as a kind of electronic cousin to The Cure’s Disintegration, but with Electro-Industrial/EBM spices, and processed versions of the kind of vocals found in Sisters of Mercy.
Anyway, I’m not crazy about Absurd Minds' last two albums; on this one, Sapta, I’m mostly just crazy about the 1st track, Carry the Flag. If you’re at all interested thus far, but have taken a look at my profile or reviews and are thinking to yourself “kildare, your taste in music fcuk’n sucks,” then you might try ignoring the first track and start on the 2nd, and just play the rest of the album, possibly skipping the 4th track, which I also like. The album is consistent throughout, and probably deserves a “superb” rating from a more reasonable fan. It just doesn’t do very much for me.
Carry the Flag
But I love the first track and introduction to the album.
Since revisiting the work after reading pizzamachine’s excellently poetic review of Beethoven’s 9th symphony, I’ve noticed how many pieces of music have been influenced -- directly or otherwise -- by its introduction over the twelve or so generations that have lived and made music since it was first performed. When Michael Steinberg wrote of it, of its "famous opening, imitated over and over in the nineteenth century," he was writing of the Romantic Era, but it seems to me the influence extended up to the present.
The 9th wasn’t the first work with an introduction that begins with a mysterious ambience that is designed to suck you into its main ideas, however. Beethoven’s own 4th symphony also begins with what Steinberg called “exquisitely wrought suspense.” And a generation earlier Mozart wrote a number of such introductions, like that for his Piano Concerto in D minor, and the Overture to Don Giovanni, and most famously the introduction to his “Dissonance” string quartet.
To really get the most out of this music, though, a person needs special training; the kind of ear-training possessed by the privileged elite that made up Mozart’s and Beethoven’s audience; and the kind of training that I have only enough of to be able to pretend that I know what I’m talking about.
But I think that I CAN get the most out of the introduction to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, where they took a different tack entirely and created a type of introduction that required no special training to appreciate. The beginning of that album creates incredible suspense in a very short snippet of cacophony: A menacing machine-like rattle underneath sinister laughter followed by a scream of horror. The sequence is an almost perfect antithesis to Beethoven’s 9th in yet another way: Where the first theme of Beethoven’s work comes charging in from quiet suspense atop thundering timpani, Floyd’s settles down immediately from the cacophony into a sublime hush of peace and tranquility.
Curiously, Pink Floyd’s cacophonous introduction type was to become influential in unexpected places: Compare it, for example, to the beginning of Skinny Puppy’s VI VI Sect VI, and a number of other Industrial albums.
Nitzer Ebb took a leaf from both Beethoven and Skinny Puppy (I do hope Classical lovers aren’t too horrified that I write about Skinny Puppy and Beethoven in the same sentence. But, well, too bad). Where the 9th Symphony begins with individual pitches, fragments of harmony that suggest but do not point to a chord, Nitzer Ebb’s song Hold On starts with an abrasive snare drum, and slowly adds in percussion fragments that suggest but do not point to a regular rhythm, until at last the synths come in and start the actual song.
Finally, the introduction to Absurd Mind’s Carry the Flag -- and to the album Sapta --mixes all of these, with melodic fragments dancing around that suggest but do not point to a harmony, mixed in with abrasive, siren-like synth sounds mixed in with string orchestra. There is a regular rhythm, but the artists somehow still created an unsettled mood that yearns for the actual song to begin, giving it the effect that introductions are meant to create: A heightened perception of the music that follows.
And I didn't even go into the lyrics of the song, which are an example of near perfect lyric writing. But your life is too short for me to continue this review any longer. Check the lyrics out -- they're worth it.
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Album Rating: 4.0
Absurd Minds are still one of my favourite futurepop bands (and there are still quite a lot of them even if the most albums were before 2010). Well Sapta is not as much futurepop anymore, but it didn't stop me from liking it of course.
My absolute favourite song on this is "Saviours", nice atmosphere. Most songs are well structured, but there are a few songs that are not so good. "A Light That Shone" is throw away stuff, why the chorus on that appears 4 (!!) times I don't get, when most songs on it only have 2, those are usually very well structured. The song was dead after just one listen, because it's just pointless and lackluster as if they didn't know what to do with it.
"Prayers" and "Mouvement" are ok, but suffer a similar problem. But the other 9 are very good, Carry The Flag is also really one of the best for me.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
"Well Sapta is not as much futurepop anymore, but it didn't stop me from liking it of course." Yeah, they've really gone in their own direction on the last two.
"My absolute favourite song on this is "Saviours", nice atmosphere." I agree. It feels like a successful concentration on atmosphere is one of the things that make their last two albums stand out. They're creating great stuff, and I listen to my non-favorite tracks from their last two albums, along with my non-favorites from Wumpscut, quite often as my background music. I really like them, I just don't looooooooove them. But the review is too long as it is, so I couldn't see working any of that in.
And I'm glad you commented so your rating is on display again, since I wiped it out when I posted the review, and since you were the first to rate this album. If the review wasn't already painfully long I'd go back and incorporate some your remarks into it; e.g. "The song was dead after just one listen, because it's just pointless and lackluster as if they didn't know what to do with it"; that remark is spot-on. But I don't think the STAFF love these lengthy reviews. Possibly it's part of being STAFF that they have to examine them all?
Anyway, for future and hopefully shorter reviews I'm eyeballing the following newish albums by: Blutengel, Eden Synthetic Corps, C-Lekktor, and Aesthetic Perfection (gotta ask STAFF to post it though, I don't like it enough to pay for it). Shoot me a Shoutbox if you have any opinions on these or on any other Futurepop/EBM/Industrial bands you think deserve reviews, and I'll try to work in your comments.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Cool to see these guys getting some attention. I agree with the review (though I have no opinion about the classic excursion, you lost me there a bit, haha).
All in all, the album is a nice listen, but there are not really standout tracks. But to be honest, I feel about their last 3 albums this way. Nevertheless, they just give me a nice cozy feeling of nostalgia, so I just keep coming always coming back.
They still offer well crafted tracks, but it would not hurt to have some uptempo bangers like on Noumenon and The Focus.
Kildare, y87arrow: What is your favorite album?
I guess I listened to The Focus the most. Pretty catchy.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
For me it's very close between The Focus and Damn The Lie, both are my favourite albums of them and I have both at 4.5, but with Noumenon and Sapta right behind them. I also like their others, in that order: Serve Or Suffer, Deception and then Tempus Fugit which is their weakest to me but still with great songs on it.
I also have their The Cycle EP (2006), many good songs on that one.
Often Absurd Minds get compared to Project Pitchfork, because the vocalist sounds similar and the lyrics, some of them can be positive or spiritual (like on The Focus for example), which both bands have in common. Project Pitchfork is also one of my absolute favourite EBM / synthpop bands even if the last one I really liked is over 10 years old.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
"it would not hurt to have some uptempo bangers like on Noumenon and The Focus." Yeah, I miss their faster music a lot. I'm afraid their hearts aren't really in it anymore; the only fast-tempo song on Sapta is still pretty mellow, like it just can't find the energy to really DIG IN.
"What is your favorite album?" I'm afraid I'm going to lose some credibility with ya'll here, because I think you're both longer time fans than I am. I discovered them on Spotify with Tempus Fugit, and kind of forgot about them until Sapta; then I got really stoked and picked up most of their discography. But now it's hard to say which ALBUM is best, because I just went through each album and picked out favorites and put all the favorites in one playlist on my mp3 player. So I don't see them as albums. I mean, their albums are higher quality, imo, than Project Pitchfork and Blutengel, who have put out huge, like, 17-song albums every two years; going through THEM is like panning for gold in a river of pebbles. But anyway, sadly, I can't really think of anything before Tempus Fugit in terms of albums. But it looks like we three can agree that their best work started with Damn The Lie, extended through The Focus (and its marvelous singles Herzlos and Masterbuilder), The Cycle, and finished with Noumenon? I like Deception, but you can tell they were just getting started as musicians. And Serve and Suffer has one of my very favorite Absurd Minds songs (Interconnectedness), but it started including elements that came to the fore with Tempus Fugit, and I don't love the other songs as much as the ones from that middle period.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
BTW, Xyphdryne, related to our discussion on my Schwarzer Engel review, are you familiar with Blutengel? Are their lyrics in German cheesy? I ask because I'm going through their latest and am having to eliminate a bunch of songs because of distracting lyrics. Pohl alternates them with lyrics in German, and I'm thinking to myself "does he go to German because the English ones are so bad? Or are the German ones bad too?" Also, I like Blutengel (they have my favorite female vocals of the Futurepop-ish bands), but they have a reeeeeeally low fanbase on Sputnikmusic, so I'm wondering if they're a kind of Nickleback/Five-Finger-Death-Punch of the Futurepop world? Like, are they a kind of sell-out and over-commercialized band in the genre? (I like a tiny handful of songs from Nickle and Death-Punch also, but "butt-rock" is how they seem to be percieved, on Sputnikmusic, anyway). I don't expect you to know or care about any of this, but you're the only German speaker I've talked to that likes bands who are sort of related to Blutengel! I was pondering a review, and an opinion of any kind would be useful.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
@y87: Okay, we have a pretty similar ranking then. Though I like Deception more than any of their last 3 albums (which are fine as well). I lost interest in Pitchfork after they released Inferno. One of the most boring albums I ever listened to. After that, I occasionally listened to some newer songs, but nothing clicked anymore. So I like several albums of their 90s stuff and I really dig Daimonion. But after that... nope.
@Kildare: Okay, that is really funny to read. I will be merciless  Please don´t project anything I will write now onto yourself. If you like Blutengel, I am happy.
But yeah, you pretty much nailed it. They are pretty big in Germany (at least inside the Gothic scene), but they are very divisive. It is basically Schlager music. They just wear black and paint their face. So, let´s say, the old school Goths listening anything from Bauhaus to Puppy will frown upon Blutengel and certainly don´t really consider it to be part of the scene. Personally, I see why.
And yeah, the lyrics are awful. Maybe a 12 year old wrote them, I don´t know.
Chris Pohl has often be called the Dieter Bohlen (Modern Talking) of the Gothic scene. So, there you have it.
And about the over-commercializing: Well, everything sounds the same, he released 20 albums in 20 years (give or take) plus several EPs. I really don´t think there is any artistic drive behind it.
If you like some added female vocals, maybe try In Strict Confidence? I am sure you know them. Far better music. Just in case you don´t know them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKtQbBO6qA0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbVYuxGFLlY
Cheers.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
"It is basically Schlager music." I was afraid of that! I mean, I don't know exactly what that means, but it doesn't sound good. Thanks for the lack of mercy. I'd rather hear the brutal truth from a (relative) stranger than make a blunder in a bar with a bunch of German Puppy fans. That's very unlikely to ever happen, mind you, given where I live now (at least a third of the radio stations out here are Country Western). But I spent a lot of my youth being careful about what bands I admitted to liking in a mixed crowd, so it's kind of second nature, and your opinions are invaluable.
For the record, they're not, like, my favorite band or anything. I just usually find one or two tracks on each album that I like. You wrote above "I really don´t think there is any artistic drive behind it," and I agree for about 75% or their records. The reason I was inspired to review the new one is because they did a whole cover album last year of 80's Synthpop, and it had a noticeable effect on the quality of the new one, to my ears anyway. It's the first album in the last three or four that I've perused that contained more than three good tracks out of 17 or so.
And much thanks for the music recs. I totally forgot about In Strict Confidence. I loved Promised Land and picked up Exile Paradise when it was a new album, but didn't really loooove the rest the record, so didn't follow them. But that was before streaming services were widely available. I've never heard "Closing Eyes," and it freak'n ROCKS. So (sigh) I guess I have another discography to dig through....
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
About Project Pitchfork, I love Inferno and Kaskade, these are albums that need time to unfold. Of course there are some songs even I don't like that much, but those 2 albums are more about the lyrics.
About In Strict Confidence: my favourite of them is Love Kills (2000), love every song on it and it has great icy cold atmosphere.
I have 7 albums I like / love of PP and ISC. Also I'm much more of an album-listener so if an album unfolds after some time (often I need time to get into an album fully) I can like more songs on it than other people. But tbh I really don't care what others think of an album if I like / love it.
Blutengel I cannot stand.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
I noticed that ISC's last (two?) albums haven't been posted on Sputnikmusic, so I can't really see how they rate.
Are their later albums comparable to their earlier work, or do they seem to be losing steam a little, like PP?
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
y87:"But tbh I really don't care what others think of an album if I like / love it."
And why would you...?
@kildare: The Hardest Heart and Hate2Love I hardly know as well. Listened a bit on YT but didn´t feel inclined to dig deeper. Last album I have is Utopia, but it is not really a fave of me either. Guess my favorite is still Holy. Seven Lives is phenomenal. Still, in general I dig 50 % of their albums (at least older ones) and the rest kinda bores me.
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