January
Deathstars -
Night Electric Night
Deathstars finally strike back with their third Full Length Album.
Not as hard as the two ones released before, but it has it's own wonderful Deathstars-Style.
11 Tracks spreading Darkness, Rock, pleasure ( and maybe some gay pride ) in your ears.
One of the best Albums this year already.
8,5 / 10
Tip: Arclight
Nin Kuji -
Vision Quest [Ep]
Nin "Master" Kuji ties on with his Medicine Man EP in this free Downloadable 9-Track EP
Almost all Tracks remind of the old Tracks on the Medicine Man EP, but it's great.
Some more great stuff to chill out on and some more stuff of Nin Kuji
Worth beeing listened by all those who dislike that shitty shredder-noise and all kinds of IDM Fans.
But, this time the ambient-parts are too long.
7 / 10
Tip: Oni Kudaki
The Prodigy -
Invaders must die
After 5 years of silence, the Prodigy come back with a mixed good and bad album.
Some tracks are powerful, good, noisy, fine...And some are just annoying (like Piranha or Omen Reprise). I admit, I had to listen it sometimes until I liked it how I like it now.
Furthermore, they made a half step back to the good old "The Fat of the Land"-Times and move far away from the style of "Always outnumbered, never outgunned". Not their best, not their worst. The special Edition inclueded the "Lost Beats EP", a real nice instrumental work, where all tracks remind of some kind of electronic country music or somewhat.
6 / 10
Tip: Thunder (+Black Smoke)
February
None...
March
None...
April
The Crystal Method -
Divided by Night
The Crystal Method get better with every Album they release.
This time, their new Album has loads of features and vocals, and the well-known instrumental-tracks in between pull you in a trance while listening.
Quite an album which was produced for the masses and I bet the masses will like it.
Maybe TCM wanted to earn some more money with this album as they already do.
My new favourite album of TCM.
8 / 10
Tip: Drown in the now
State of Mind -
Faster than Light
State of mind released their second full-length Album... And it's totally great.
Nez Zealand Drum & Bass at it's best, a fireworks of fast beats, combined with fast raps or trancy melodies. Can't get enough of this one.
And like the main album with 11 tracks, the inclueded bonus CD is a nice one with two bonus tracks and five (great) remixes.
Nice one!
8 / 10
Tip: City on fire
Sven Wittekind -
Fight for Techno
Sven Wittekind strikes back with his second Longplayer in his Dj-career.
None of the Tracks reaches the level of Sunstorm, but the tracks sound better, darker and more grown-up than the ones on "Seven Deadly Sins". The tracks are quite slow for Hardtechno, 140 - 150 BPM. But this time the basses kick harder and more Sounds and melodies were used to underline the typical Schranz-blaring.
Nice release, as well for easy listening as the Dancefloor.
7,5 / 10
Tip: Bassface
May
Týr -
By the Light of the Northern Star
Týr wanted to correct the mistakes they made with the "Land"-album - and yes - they did it!. Some tracks are faster than the most Týr-songs we're used to but thats not negative, although "Hold the Heathen Hammer high" reminds me of some 80's speed Metal stuff. Again they grab the heathen history, not always correct but amusing to listen to, although as the well-known mix between Faroese, icelandic and english lyrics. The Playtime is about 45 Minutes, shorter than the antecessor albums but I always had the feeling of musical overload in their albums, excepting their - so far - best album Ragnarök. But" By the light of the northern star" is ranked 2nd now.
A good one. But I think the limited bonus edition is a joke, 2 additional instrumental tracks further inclueded, both with a playtime of almost two minutes - dispensable and just a bonus for...addicts. But even they might think it's a joke.
7 / 10
Tip: Tro'ndur í Gøtu
Centhron -
Roter Stern
This is a hard one to be beaten this year. Centhron totally made it again - it's always the same, comparable with acts like legion of the damned ( not musically ) but it's always a good one. WK III starts the 3rd World War on your audio system and leads you into a great world of fast, hard beats, spacegothic horny Girls, divine machines, planetary war, sluts and of course: sex.
As every Centhron release, hard, nice, vocals mixed englisch and mostly german, many, many vocoder-voices and some samples, combined with the power of fast beats (this time not as fast as for example "Einheit C", the 150-BPM mark is not crossed on Roter Stern) and synthesizer-leads.
But, imagine, the album even has some bad facets. For example the funtrack "Die Galeere". Not for listening, really just for fun. Not the worst thing. But we should be tolerant, the track is important for some band-members (maybe?). Kaltes Fleisch and Bitch of dreams allegorize those tracks I don't like that much: The slow Centhron Tracks - best example is Cen - die Bootschaft. They made a remake of their freetrack "Cäsar" which is called Testosteron on this release. The Voice and the music is better, but the vocoder is really shit. And Elmar could have left out screaming "TESTOSTERON" each time after the refrain - annoying. Some things have been made better as in the demo, some not. Still not a bad track. And the thing driving me the most insane is that the track "fast blast" has just no kicking bass. And it could have been 10 - 20 BPM faster combined with the bassline of tracks like roter Stern, Orkan or WK III.
All in all just a Centhron release - powerful - sexy - controverse - A killer!
9 / 10
Tip: Die Sphären von Ost
June
Suicide Silence -
No time to bleed
My metal times are over but as I heard some tracks of Suicide Silence, I was really enthusiastic. As "The Cleansing" this disc again contains eleven tracks. Powerful, hard and somehow different to tracks of the other (technical) Deathcore bands.
And an exotic band/album in my small collection. But I can't find further words to describe this work, so I'll just finish talkin' shit. Maybe I'm too tired already.
6 / 10
Tip: Smoke
July
None...
August
None...
September
None...
October
DJ Tiësto -
Kaleidoscope
A sign of life from Tiesto. Although the trance-regression has cought him too, already noticeable on Elements of Life, and finally broke his resistance, or creativity, opinion, whatever, this release is quite a good one. He combines modern Trance with Tiesto-Style and lots of vocal tracks featuring some underground and some well-known artists. Surprisingly good release this year, lots of fun to listen to it.
8 / 10
Tip: Who wants to be alone?
November
Grendel -
Chemicals & Circuitry EP
My creativity is gone now...
Nice, trancy Sounds, combined with Dark Electro and though annoying female and Andy La Plegua-like vocals. INteresting when you're used to it. too much but nice remixes.
6 / 10
Tip: Serotonin Rush
December
None...
Summary:
2009 was a poor year for music. Some artists really failed, best example are Dope Stars Inc. - guys, what the fuck? But also Psyclon Nine and The 69 Eyes sucked totally this year, let alone Combichrist. And come on, this year was probably the most annoying year in music since the mid-90s. Artists as Lady GaGa, David Guetta and Blutonium Boy terrorized our ears, either with shitty music, bad Dj-sets or both. Get lost... Disappoiting that this year has been quite poor, just a handful of interesting releases and again a handful of them good. Also some artists didn't make it to release their albums, awaited or announced, such as Nin Kuji who had to work a lot and not that much time to focus on music, Concord Dawn who'll make it again next year hopefully, Stahlfrequenz where I don't know what the fuck is wrong with the Tetonical Structures Album, or Grendel, who didn't make it to release their Album in 2009. Anyway, let's just hope that 2010 will be a much better year. Still, a new HIM is about to be releases in February, and maybe Junkie XL, Grendel, Concord Dawn and other bands will please us again with their newest stuff in the next decade.
Sorry if my english is not always the best, I work on improving it ;)
Blutonium Boy
