Amantyde - Mädchen review

Year : 2011
Genre : Alternative Metal
Label : Red Pony Records / Audioglobe
Origin : Italy
Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Amantyde's latest features an effect craver cover art and a lead singer chick who has the bar code sticker removed from her mouth already. This Italian act, for the most part, is a less aggressive variant on the music primarily proposed by bands like Kidney Thieves and Solsikk, and this conscious utilization - or, rather non-utilization - of less aggression and less adrenaline both make this release a solid "peaceful variant" on anxiety-fixated borderline metal music. One that exhibits a mid-tempo character, and shows no particular desire to communicate bloated boring misery via "radical" shortcut ways like the worthless fry screaming. While over-the-top raw intensity, one would think, is inherent to-, and a must for this genre of analogue alternative cyber metal, Amantyde's latest actually registers as a particularly strong LP despite its natural stance that knows and bows to no fixation of going speedy all the time. Which is somewhat of a trademark of this musical direction, as it becomes obvious when its absence emerges evident, courtesy of this Amantyde release. Read on to find out more about this fine contribution.


This LP, interestingly enough, has a capacity to reveal a blend of cybernetic industrial and hasty sludge at its core, - delicate chorus of track number 2 "Join Me In the Desert" is a great example to this, according to my personal percepts - and it never sinks into the need of the furious tempo in order to come through as a force you have to reckon with. Largely mid-paced in character, Amantyde's latest packs particular aptness to entertain the ears with soulful, relevant, delicious choruses, coming through as very efficient stimuli replacements to ease the burden on the verse as an entity. Not that it is anything wrong with the verses, either. Quite the contrary : this sounds to be a pretty song release from a musical point of view, with great awareness placed on playing through a good amount of sonic registers via changing keys flamboyantly and bravely in a way that the character/the message of the music still remains faithful to the general mood of inventive, colorful borderline comic angst. Which, to make this clear, is a very entertaining mood to be immersed in.

During this sexy spin, the intentions of the lead singer chick are quite easy to grasp. While her voice is somewhat generic female to me, - which would be the number 1 reason to kill if I would be a female singer, so excuse me - at least she does not delude herself into thinking that she needs to do THIS affectation or THAT mannerism to sound more like a borderline woman who is about to bite neighboring man noses off. Her affectations are absolutely minimal and well tamed if there is any surfacing at all, and there are compositions on this release that are pretty kickass contributions for the "mere" genre of analog cybernetic alternative metal they seek to inventively enrich. And with what superb efficiency! The chorus of track number 1, "Creepy Crowlies" is one Kidney Thieves' fronter Free Domninguez, too, would be glad to sing to you, and, amidst 6 or 7 more, one particular track also comes to mind that I find utterly relevant as it packs a great and successful summoning of what this genre wants. Track number 6, called "My Enemy" probably is the most aggressive one on the whole spin. Herein, a little distortion is applied on the voice of the lead singer girl, and a good verse gives place to a totally out of control chorus that I personally love, and I think you should check it out, too.

The weaker parts of this otherwise surprisingly likable and tight delivery are some relatively lame-, nevertheless entertaining verse structures, like in the otherwise pretty good song "Nothing But The Rain". In the verse, the lead singer chick delivers a performance of rapping/singing, kind of early Nina Hagen-like, only Nina Hagen is fucking borderline indeed, so you can imagine the difference. This album has a cover of the song called "Zombie" by the Cranberries, too. Regarding my percepts of this cover, I totally like how they approach the song : they are giving it the relentless metal heft, and the song likes it tremendously.

Amantyde's Mädchen is a brave, musically inventive package that has all the chance in the whole wide world to grow on you to make you more, courtesy of its abundant supply of legit, exigent musical hooks and well articulated compositional ideas. I'm especially happy to see the band's decision of coming forth with 39 minutes of legit music than coming forward with 5 minutes of delicacy riding on top of oceanic mediocrity. Hopefully, that never ever happens again, and this would be a solid night wish, as well. Blehe. I'm a snob and I dare say that you can't go wrong with this Italian analogue cybernetic borderline alternative metal delivery. You want this.

Rating : 8.8 / 10

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