Nine Seconds – That Perfect Beat Will Tear Us Apart (Album – Infacted Recordings)

Genre/Influences: Electro-Pop, EBM.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: German-Swiss trio Nine Seconds announced their fourth full length album with the surprising EP “Love Will Tear Us Apart” featuring cover versions of legendary bands Joy Division, Bronski Beat, Trans-X and Starter. The new album moves on the same formula revealing a few more cover versions.
Content: Next to the already familiar cover versions from Joy Division, Bronski Beat and Trans-X the trio accomplished more cover versions from Fad Gadget, Propaganda, Fancy, Paul Hardcastle, Front 242, Depeche Mode and Mando Diao. This kind of experience is always fun for the band, but a challenge to convince the fans. Nine Seconds perfectly adapted most of the songs into a very own, Body-Pop approach sometimes adding female backing vocals next to Oliver Spring. Mind.In.A.Box made a remix of “Lie To Me” while the less familiar Membran 66 remixed “Living On Video”.
+ + + : I’m always skeptical with this kind of releases and especially when it concerns legendary hits from the 80s like “Ricky’s Hand”, “Love will Tear Us Apart”, “Dr. Mabuse”, “Lie To Me”, “Living On Video” or “No Shuffle”. I must admit that the way they adapted Fad Gadget’s “Ricky’s Hand” is absolutely well done. But the most surprising and probably best song is the Italo-Disco hit “Slice Me Nice” from Fancy, which still sounds a bit Italo-Disco like, but with a naughty, evil and rough touch on top. Mind.In.A.Box did also a great job remixing Depeche Mode’s “Lie To Me” into something space-like and still danceable.
– – – : A few songs couldn’t convince me at all; the aforementioned “Lie To Me” and “Love will Tear Us Apart”. I’ve also some reservations about the impact of such a ‘conceptual’ work, but on the other side it’s also a way to pay tribute to bands and songs you like and bring young music lovers to discover legendary tracks from the Electronic scene.
Conclusion: I definitely prefer when Nine Seconds are composing their own music, but they for sure did an honest job covering such legendary bands.
Best songs: “Slice Me Nice”, “Ricky’s Hand”, “Dr. Mabuse”, “Hit That Perfect Beat”, “Lie To Me – Mind.In.A.Box Remix”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.nineseconds.de / www.facebook.com/nineseconds
Label: www.infacted-recordings.de / www.facebook.com/pages/Infacted-Recordings/124099254321690
About Nine Seconds
Nine Seconds is a German-Swiss trio built around vocalist Oliver Spring, formerly of Sleepwalk, together with Thomas Kowalzik and Rene Ebner, both formerly of No Comment. The band mixes EBM and electro-pop and signed to Infacted Recordings for the album “Agent Provocateur”. “That Perfect Beat Will Tear Us Apart” is their fourth full-length, following the covers EP “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and continuing the group’s cover-song format with reworked versions of tracks by Joy Division, Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode and others.
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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.

