Alien Vampires – Return Me To Hell (Album – Alfa Matrix)
Alien Vampires - Return Me To Hell (Album – Alfa Matrix)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Electro, Industrial, EBM.
Format: Digital, 2CD.
Background/Info: Italian Electro-act Alien Vampires strikes back with their first new studio-album in eight years. “Return Me To Hell” is a double disc featuring twenty one songs. The sixth studio full length comes 20 years after the band’s inception.
Content: Alien Vampires haven’t changed their initial approach composing harsh and merciless Electronic music. Harsh and provocative but still featuring ‘poppy’ melody lines, the work brings different influences together. Most of the tracks are powerful now and then boosted with extra guitar riffs. The second disc sounds more diversified, exploring Industrial-Rave fields -one of the cuts have been composed together with Chainreactor. A few extra guests have been invited to achieve this work which comes to an end with a cover version of Skinny Puppy’s legendary hit “Assimilate”.
+ + + : Time is going fast but Alien Vampires haven’t lost their power and nose for provocation. Just take a look at the front cover of the album and you’ll immediately seize what this band is made of. But Alien Vampires are much more than an image, it’s a band with a great sound. There’s no true innovation but a perfect balance between elements of Dark-Electro, EBM, Techno-Trance, Industrial and even Dark-Pop. All ingredients have been shaken by powerful rhythms to produce dancefloor killers. The first disc sounds great but the second one moves a step further revealing a band at full speed and driven by adrenaline. Nothing sounds impossible for Alien Vampires and everything they touched turns into sonic gold. It’s hard to give a favorite track as there are multiple smashers featured.
– – – : The single cut that couldn’t convince me is the chaotic-sounding cover version of “Assimilate”. This could be cool to play live but poorly inspired on this album. I think there’s no reason to complain about this single cut as this album is probably the best one the ‘vampires’ have ever released.
Conclusion: A fully accomplished and diversified piece of Dark-Electro made in Italy.
Best songs: “Destroyer”, “10 Bags 10 Lines”, “Hyperbolic Doubt Feat. Chainreactor”, “Ready To Die”, “Automatic Writing”, “World In Denial”, “Time”, “Fuck Borders”.
Rate: 9.
Artist: Official Alien Vampires Facebook page
Label: www.alfa-matrix.com / www.facebook.com/Alfa.Matrix Read the news on ‘Return Me To Hell’.
About Alien Vampires
Alien Vampires is an industrial, EBM and dark electro project from Italy, founded in 2003 by guitarist and keyboardist Nysrok Infernalien. Synthesist Nemesis joined the same year, followed in 2004 by keyboardist and drummer Nightstalker. The band signed to the Italian label Kold Finger in 2005, releasing the debut album “Evil Generation” that year and the EP “Nuns are Pregnant” in 2007. A 2007 deal with the US label BLC Productions produced the second album, “No One Here Gets Out Alive”.
Alien Vampires signed to Alfa Matrix in 2010, releasing “Harshlizer” that year, followed by the EPs “Clubbers Die Younger” (2012) and “Hard Drugs & BDSM” (2014), the album “Drag You to Hell” (2015) with guest appearances from members of Ministry, Mayhem and Psyclon Nine, and further EPs including “Evil Twin” (2018), “World in Denial” (2020) and “Destrudo” (2020). “Return Me To Hell”, the band’s sixth full-length album, followed in 2023, eight years after “Drag You to Hell”.
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.
