Deathstars
Night Electric Night

THE REVIEW

'Blend of Industrial and Gothic Metal reproduced in a Glam context.'

This simple phrase could summarize "Night Electric Night", the second album by the "Deathstars", a Swedish band with a solid background as support acts (opening for Cradle Of Filth in 2006) that decided in 2009 to make the ultimate leap by releasing this album.
I will start by saying that the vocal lines of the leader A. Bergh bear a significant resemblance to those of T. Lindemann (Rammstein), but that should not detract from the Swedish vocalist's performance and, more generally, the band's work.

"Night Electric Night" is as convincing and self-assured as it is sly and provocative, starting from the opening track "Chertograd" complete with strong, distorted keyboards that serve as a prelude to gothic vocal openings both in this track and the subsequent title track "Night Electric Night" (which cacophonically bears a significant resemblance to "Feuer Frei" by Rammstein).
It continues with the first single "Death Dies Hard"  characterized by a looping base that enhances a solid verse-chorus-verse structure that is dreamy and proud of itself, before falling into the repetitive "The Mark Of The Gun". Indeed, the album risks collapsing as early as track number 4 due to consistently elevated rhythms at the same level; I confirm that if you are distracted, you risk losing focus on the various tracks and consequently getting lost in the listening experience.

As a remedy to this, the uneasy "Via The End", perfectly fits, stepping away from the Industrial style to enter a calm and serene Gothic, almost as if to soothe the listener, dragging them into a suspenseful dimension that will slowly fade accompanied by the excellent "Blood Stains Blondes", well-crafted in the chorus with a fitting small choir that contrasts A.Bergh's cold voice, until it returns with force to levels of excellent and confident 'boldness' with "Babylon" but especially with "Arclight", in my opinion the best track on the album. It's not a key track, but the most convincing due to its naturalness since the album as a whole seems to lock itself up, showing authority yet also a bit of almost forced redundancy. The rhythms of "Arclight", like other tracks, have the merit of being catchy after only a few listens, making the group's and the producers' work appreciable.

I emphasize how the "Deathstars" place themselves positively in a genre, the Industrial, where it's not easy to stand out with new ideas. Moreover, there are no significant drops in quality in this album (listen to the penultimate track "Venus In Arms"). In short, summarizing this album with a simple phrase would have been correct, but not sufficiently exhaustive, so congratulations to the Scandinavian group. "Night Electric Night" is sufficiently authoritative to be defined as a great Industrial or Gothic work, leaving the choice and the appropriate categorizations to you.