MYNOX LAYH Album: +Terminus Claritatis+ Label: Hyperium A really good CD, with no bad tracks... almost uniformly heavy, ponderous industrial music, with a sound like a symphonic horror movie sound track, but enhanced with unique sounds from god-knows-where. Industrial/goth cliches like fuzzed up vocals, ethereal chorus and drum machine beats are *occasionally* present, but used in new ways to good effect. The only light sounding track here is cut 12. My favorites are probably 9 and 10, for their sheer quantities of *stuff*. 1 5:18 "The Square & Epilog" - begins with some sparse pianoy stuff that made me think "Oh no, has Mynox Layh gone normal?" This lasts for maybe 15 seconds. Then it kicks into some really solid industrial, with a repetetive juggernaut of a rhythm to it, but no drum-machine stereotyped beat. Touches of a symphonic sound. Some nearly incomprehensible industrial style vox. 2 3:46 "Unschuld 1" - Yeah, more ponderous, heavy stuff, with some touches of almost choral background vox, a single prominent whoop/scream sample repeats throughout. 3 4:15 "Caldera" - stringy start. Loud horns kick. All very horror movie. alternates this with a calmer style. Very warped, slithery under-water sounding vocal distortion. Really soundtrack like in the way it varies in mood, and in the style of music it hits. 4 3:21 "The Fairless Vampirekillers" -- Rapid progression of elements: violent soundtrack licks, industrial fuzzed growls, ethereal chorus, vibes-melody... Leads up to a looped echoing fade. 5 4:32 "Rashnijavar" -- Horns... slow heavy rhythmic sound. An actual beat on this one. Some clarinet-like synth licks. Vaugely like snake charming music. 6 4:25 "Exaudi Nos" -- Ominous, chimey, choral religous start. Really deep, ponderous melody gradually starts up. An (artifically) deep voice comes in in german. Punctuated by sudden shriek samples (which sound very Peter Gabriel). Pounding, tinkling like broken glass. 7 3:43 "Unschuld III" -- Fast, angular, occasionally relaxes, but kicks back in again. 8 2:52 "Unschuld II" -- A very regular metal percussion sound, like Sharkbait with very little vox. Leads up to a heavy rocket engine blast of distorted vox. 9 3:18 "Venus Fly Trap" -- Begins angular jazzy sounding, then some ponderous symphonic touches, quasi-hiphop *scratching noises*, some ethereal female vocal samples lifted from an old Star Trek episode... an amazing mix. 10 2:14 "Battledog" -- Another one! Faster, heavier, alot of samples similar to cut 9 but buried deeper, more subtle, mixed weirder... 11 3:08 "Illusion" -- Religious/choral beginning, goes into German male spoken vocals, reminiscent of F.M. Einheit. Ominous symphonic licks, very spooky/godzilla. 12 3:35 "Water Violet" -- What the hell? Kicks off with a european pop radio jingle sample? Goes into mellow piano with a kind of light rain sound. The synth melody is all unusually light/atmospheric/straight-forward for them. Something like the Baraka soundtrack. Contact Info: Distributed in Germany by Rough Trade Worldwide: Benelux/RTD BV Danmark/Pingo France/Semantic GB/Plastic Head Hong Kong/Sound Factory Spain/Rotor Portugal/Messerschmitt Sweden/Hot Stuff/Blitz United States Office: Darkwave/Fax 2133440889 Hyperium: D-90259 Nurnberg P.O. Box 910127 Tel +49/911/933770 Fax +49/911/9337744