Alexander Dust – Pathetic But Great (Album – Painful Scream Records)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Rock, Goth-Rock.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: This is the seventh full length album by former ALSO member Alexander Dust. It’s the seventh full length album released by the German multi-instrumentalist. Painful Scream Records is his own label.
Content: The songs are diversified, but mainly driven by Dark-Rock and Goth influences. Alexander Dust created his own sound, which he masterly accomplished with an impressive arsenal of instruments; playing electric- & acoustic guitar, bass, piano, ukulele, flute, keyboards, percussion and ao. And he’s singing as well, in a rather passionate way.
+ + + : I deeply respect and salute the performance of this artist who might consider himself as a real musician in the truest sense of the word. I especially like some of the guitar parts wherein he succeeds in putting on a similar passion as in the vocals. Some passages are pure drama and even a bit theatrical. Just pay attention to “The Party’s Over”, which has a true elevating effect emerging from the guitar playing.
– – – : The sound is not that easy to define and not totally belonging to one established genre.
Conclusion: This album is an easy and pleasant to listen to.
Best songs: “The Party’s Over”, “Valentines For Memories”, “Now Watch Out”.
Rate: 7.
Artist & Label: www.facebook.com/dustalso
About Alexander Dust
Alexander Dust is the singer and songwriter of the 1990s German dark wave band ALSO and has worked as a solo artist since 2008 on his own label, Painful Scream Records, which also reissues the ALSO back catalogue. His Bandcamp page lists the earlier solo albums “Dust To Dust”, “You New Me”, “Cross The Bridge Turn The Page”, “Quiet Collectors – Torture The Deaf Mute” and “Dysangelist”, plus the EP “Apocrypha (The Lost Dysangelium)”.
Side-Line announced the fifth album in the September 2020 news item Alexander Dust returns with 5th studio album ‘To What Is Left’ and reviewed To What Is Left in February 2021. “Pathetic But Great” followed on 9 April 2021 on CD and as a download. Recorded in spring 2020 at The DustBin in Overath, it was produced and mixed by Dust and mastered by Oliver Fabel at AMS; Benita Borbonus sings backing vocals on “The Morning Sun” and “The Party’s Over”, and the cover uses a painting by Niall Parkinson. The ten tracks are “The Morning Sun”, “Now Watch Out”, “Naked And Torn”, “Liquid Deadly Borders”, “Aglossia”, “I Dream Shadows”, “Strange Spring”, “Valentines For Memories”, “The Party’s Over” and “Pathetic And Great”.
German Angst I-IV, released on 13 October 2023 and reviewed on Side-Line in January 2024, is his eighth solo album and the first with German-language vocals. “The Trial EP” followed on 27 December 2024. “Pathetic But Great” is the album that came after “To What Is Left”.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
