Chainreactor – Decayed Values (CD Album – ProNoize/Dark Dimensions)

Genre/Influences: Dark-electro, industrial-trance, power-noise.

Background/Info: Jens Minor and singer Kay Schäfer (who now became a full time member) are back on track unleashing a new opus of Chainreactor. The project became a kind of ProNoize flag holder and definitely a noticeable project if you like dark-electronics and industrial-techno/rave music.

Content: “Decayed Values” moves on where previous releases “Dirt” and “Mass Driver” stopped. The songs remain inspired by dark-electronics and industrial-rave music, but quite progressively you can hear this band evolving from the ‘rave’ input towards more ‘classical’ dark-electronic music. They in a way bring elements of Noisuf-X and Combichrist together. The vocals, which become more present on each new album are sung a raw and enraged way reinforcing the element of ‘violence’ running through the music.

+ + + : I still consider Chainreactor as one of the most talented artists belonging to this ‘new’ generation of dark-electronics. “Decayed Values” once again reveal the genius of Jens Minor who has a nose to create alluring sound sculptures mixing icy and raving sounds together with hard-pumping kicks. Some of the tracks are resulting in a trance atmosphere, but other cuts are touching ground with power-noise. There’s a lot to discover on “Decayed Values” and that’s why this album will appeal for a wider range of electronic lovers.

– – – : This is without a shadow of a doubt the most diversified Chainreactor work and I have to admit I’m a bit missing the pure trance/rave-industrial format from the early years.

Conclusion: Chainreactor is a project that has progressively evolved throughout the years. There’s not a big difference between this album and the previous one, but if you go back to the first work you’ll realize the evolution. It’s a great album I can fully recommend, but not my favorite one in the Chainreactor discography.

Best songs: “Legendary Suffering”, “The Devil’s Trick”, “Impact Drill”, “The Powers”.

Rate: (8).

Band: www .facebook .com /Chainreactor

Label: www .darkdimensions .de / www .facebook .com /pages /Dark –Dimensions –Label –Group /486014725206

Since you’re here …

… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The donations are safely powered by Paypal.