Vital Weekly

Frans de Waard | October 05, 2005

Don't think I ever heard of Flatline Skyline before, but it's a band of R. Andrew Scott and Jacen Kemp. They play electronics and sing-a-long to those and 'Horizon Grid' is their debut. Crossing the boundaries of gothic like IDM, and IDM-like gothic, they are at times quite poppy, but somehow they won't make it to the charts with this. Overall, the atmosphere is a bit too dark and the songs are a bit grey. Occasional noise elements is another thing that will put the hit-makers of. However, me think this is quite a nice work. Kemp's singing reminded me at times of Marc Almond, but it's less soulful. That's perhaps my main objection against this CD: it all sounds to similar, there is no standout track, no real up-tempo one (or real down-tempo), a heavy guitar solo, god knows what else. For maybe eight or so tracks it's very good, but then the desire of change becomes urgent. Still, I think quite positive about it, would rate this with seven out of ten (if I would do such things).

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