Kasper Hate – Play More Synthpop (Album – ScentAir Records)
Genre/Influences: Electro-pop, experimental-pop.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Kasper Hate last year released its fifth album to date. The German project remains faithful to ScentAir Records on which they released the first album (cf. “Wolf skill”) in 2014.
Content: Things became interesting on the previous album (cf. “Why Live When You Can Rule”), on which the band showed a more minimalistic approach empowered with some EBM elements. The title of this new opus is a right choice for a composition holding on minimalism, but becoming more electro-pop as well. It has something refreshing, sometimes a tiny experimental as this artist clearly avoids cheap clichés in the genre, but still danceable.
+ + + : The minimalism revealed on songs such as “You Put A Spell On Me” and “Divine” both confirm the ‘new’ style of Kasper Hate. The entire production becomes more mature and especially polished. It also stands for a band that has found its own sound since the previous album and, which even has something intimate. The best part of this work stands for refined bleeps, ghost-like melodies and danceable pop music.
– – – : The production of the vocals can still be much better and especially a few songs where I’m missing more passion. I’m also convinced this album again is missing a true potential hit.
Conclusion: The good thing about Kasper Hate is that this project brings a rather refreshing sound based upon retro elements.
Best Songs: “Divine”, “You Put A Spell On Me”, “Heaven Was Wide – Album Version”, “Bitter Bitch”.
Rate: (7½).
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.
