By Melissa Andrews
Night Electric Night is the third album from Swedish industrial band Deathstars. I am hoping – judging from the album artwork showing the band in matching outfits and looking quite androgynous, plus their sometimes morbidly silly lyrics – that they are not a band that take themselves too seriously. While there isn’t anything that really stands out to get the listener’s attention, there also isn’t anything particularly horrific about this album.
The keyboard sound is one of the more disappointing aspects of this collection. Only one song uses a different keyboard sound. “Arclight” is my favourite song on the album, partly because it sounds a little bit different then the rest of the songs presented here. The female background vocals are one of the better aspects of the album as whenever they are used it enhances the song. The rest of what Deathstars do is a generally well-produced and engineered generic radio friendly sound.
This album is also available in a “gold edition” that includes remixes and video clips. The remixes of the songs may turn them into something a little more interesting. I imagine that these guys might be fun to see live. Currently the band is on tour promoting the album in Australia.
(Beiler Bros Records – N. America; Nuclear Blast – Europe)
