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Rating: In the year 2003, when the old guard of dark wave was virtually extinct and the new forces of the genre were consolidating in an increasingly superficial landscape with less and less substance, the Dutch Clan of Xymox produced their most electronic album to date, reaffirming a leadership that not everyone took for granted. Having reached the present day with twenty-five years of honorable career behind them (thus becoming one of the longest-lived dark bands), at the beginning of the 2000s Ronny Moorings and company repainted their sound by progressively eliminating guitars and focusing on keyboards, without losing that patina of melancholic and shadowed romanticism, but—if you will—emphasizing even more the nihilistic and "gothic" imprint. In fact, the album "Farewell" represented (in 2003) the peak and point of no return of their creativity, which embraced the logic of a pounding and buzzing techno combined with the atmospheres dear to the band; with minimalist lyrics full of pathos and tension and a decidedly disillusioned approach.
This carefully packaged work, endowed with a truly remarkable acoustic clarity, debuts with a pair of relentless tracks that leave an immediate mark, whether for the linear refrains or for the precise rhythm scanning. The title track "Farewell" and "Cold Dump Day" are two pearls of cultured techno that drag you into a triumph of synthesizers and decadent emotions, revisiting the images evoked in the memorable debut album "Clan of Xymox" (1985) with an updated interpretation stripped of the more dreamy inclinations.
The aura of darkness and unease does not falter as the tracklist unfolds, with tracks having eloquent titles like "There's No Tomorrow" and "Into Extremes" leaving no doubt about the moods that inspired them. And if towards the end the eighties reminiscences of Sisters of Mercy in "Losing My Head" seem to open a glimpse of irony in this fair of anguish, the closing "Skindeep" resets the emotional wakefulness and ends the listening with a grim cut.
It's no coincidence that after "Farewell" there was an attempt to recover able to shuffle the cards, with a return to guitars and a not very successful disguise of the techno sound. In reality, "Farewell" was the sign of an evolutionary path that, in the European wave scene, could not help but to give itself a more precise identity. An identity skillfully shifted towards electronics and capable of assuming an extremely dark profile despite the common belief that dark sound cannot forgo guitars. Indeed, some exegetes and fans of the Dutch group raised their eyes, listening to "Farewell," only to change their minds a few years later with the release of the unsuccessful and banal "Breaking point".
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Farewell (05:23)
All these helpless fallen angels
Evading commonplace
Dreading a thousand nameless evils
In the dark shimmering rays
The one with all the intuition
Knows now there's nothing gained
This cycle needs no repetition
I simply move away
Farewell affectionate brothers,
you won't see me again
Farewell affectionate brothers,
you won't hear me again
All in all , it's all forgotten
there's beauty in decay
Like the sun's tears in heaven
Calls back the castaway
Farewell affectionate brothers,
I won't see you again
Farewell affectionate brothers,
I cast my cares away Farewell
affectionate brothers,
I won't see you again
Farewell affectionate brothers,
you won't hear me again..
06 Into Extremes (05:48)
Living to the full is all I need in this town
Sail this ship of fools is all I do not to drown
You wait until I bleed when all I seek is unsound
So , so does it mean I go into extremes
Go into extremes , go into extremes ?
See how you feel when you fall in a sole manic stream
All what is left in my wake is the lust , love and hate
I crave for the one , and it’s all , and it’s all I ever done
Dead in a worn out cube I had enough of these skeletons
So , so does it mean , I go into extremes
go into extremes , go into extremes ?
So come on now , so come on now
Your lipstick screams , that’s what it means
That’s what it means, that’s what it means
Breaking all the rules is all I have on my mind
Across the barricades and no one goes like I do
So , so does it mean , So , so does it mean
I go into extremes , go into extremes ?
08 Courageous (05:15)
I live by bread alone
Makes you wanna go
I live in no manâ (TM)s land
Make me understand
One minute of the truth
Way down in your heart
Say what you want to tell
Way down you live in hell
I see youâ (TM)re courageous
Hear your damnation
See your temptation
Hear your frustration
I tell you where I stand
Iâ (TM)ve known it all along
Fate knocks on every door
Why keep it hanging on
Youâ (TM)re looking for Jacobâ (TM)s stone
Or for the chosen one
Iâ (TM)ve seen them come and go
When all is said and done
I see youâ (TM)â (TM)re courageous, see your starvation
See your vocation, give us salvation
Anything wonderful, anything please make it whole
Anything wonderful, anything please make it whole
- You got it, you hold it, you know it, I call it, you seal it, you fold it, I love it, you hate it
You leave it, you solve it, you play it, you feel it, you stall it, you breed it, you need it, you know it. -
I see youâ (TM) re courageous
See you â ~re in wasteland
See your duration
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Other reviews
By Fidia
"Abandoning all commercial ambitions, the remaining chapters of 'Farewell' are electronically driving, with peaks of true sonic explosion."
"'There's No Tomorrow' reaches the highest point, a powerful electrodark that draws industrial apocalyptic scenarios."
