Collide – Notes From The Universe (Album – Collide)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Pop, Industrial-Pop, Wave-Pop.
Format: Digital, CD + 2CD.
Background/Info: kaRIN and Statik set up Collide in 1992. Thirty years later they unleash their eleventh studio album in history. It also is the American band’s first self-released opus.
Content: This new work by Collide takes off a rather bombastic and Industrial-Pop driven style featuring kaRIN’s angelic timbre of voice on top. It’s quite representative for the rest of the work although the album gets progressively more refined, dreamy and Pop-like.
+ + + : Collide deals with a kind of dreamy, sensual and yet heavy sound. The album is progressively growing, the best songs being in the second part. The writing is sophisticated and deals with a very personal sound. It’s not that easy to define but this intimate sound makes the particularity of Collide. I recommend listening to “Haunting Me Still” for its sensual touch and “I Go Crashing” which is a superb last dreamy and even Cinematic-like cut with a hypnotic effect.
– – – : The debut part of the album sounds more hesitant and without a true climax, the tracks being also pretty long during.
Conclusion: Collide released an album without any true surprises but remains faithful to their very own sound and style.
Best songs: “I Go Crashing”, “Haunting Me Still”, “Freak Like Me”.
Rate: 7½.
Artist: www.collide.net / www.facebook.com/CollideBand Read the news on ‘Notes From The Universe’.
About Collide
Collide is an American electronic duo formed in Los Angeles in 1992 by vocalist kaRIN and producer Statik. The band blends darkwave, industrial, trip hop, and synthpop elements. Their debut album, “Beneath the Skin”, followed in 1996, and the remix set “Distort” in 1998. Collide later founded its own label, Noiseplus Music, releasing “Chasing the Ghost” in 2000.
“Notes From The Universe” arrived in 2022, thirty years after Collide’s formation, as the band’s eleventh studio album.
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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.
