Review Summary: Well-done futurepop, but oh so boring.
Any given futurepop album will have juicy synthesizers, nice melodies, and strong beats. This format was created and perfected by the founder of futurepop, VNV Nation, and has been followed ever since. Often, if a certain band is considered to be similar to the mighty VNV Nation, such a band would be given praise. In this case, the opposite is true, and it is indeed bad that Illusion Of Light are so similar to VNV Nation. When compared to such a giant, Illusion Of Light is an 8 year old with a bad case of hero worship. He wants to be just like a certain sports star, but at this stage in his life, his attempts fail, and he sucks at sports.
The only aspect of this album that makes Illusion Of Light stand out is their vocalists. One of their vocalists is a female, and that definitely affects the feeling of the album. Giving the music a feminine touch creates a much warmer album, whether intentional or not, and the warmth suits the album nicely. After all, Illusion of Light prefers the genre’s warm side anyway, with joyful, bouncy, vivacious synths. Illusion of Light definitely prefer catchy electronics, and seem to prefer the “pop” in futurepop. Unlike many futurepop bands/albums that take on cold, smothering atmospheres, this band is not afraid to let their joy shine. A remaining problem though, is that the songs lack power because of the thin and shallow synths - the album is weakened in the process. Only synths provided the legs to stand on, and without the legs, the chair is useless for sitting on.
Unfortunately, Illusion of Light’s sprightliness only has a temporary effect on the listener. For the first three tracks the music may interest (not including the ineffective intro), but shortly after, it honestly becomes boring. It doesn’t help either that there are virtually no defining differences between songs. It’s like the band chose specific chords, recorded one song, and decided, “Hey, this sounds great! Let’s make the rest of the album sound exactly like this song!”. Since there are tons of varied futurepop albums from other bands, this album seems a waste of time to listen to. However, even though the songs are all too similar, they are still rather well done. Even with their minimal amount of variation, the songs are still catchy and have strong choruses. It is not that bad of an album, but with much better music out there, it won’t be hard to give this one a miss.
Recommended Songs:
- Searching
- Ameisenstaat 2010
- One Moment
- Unendlichkeit
