Numb – Mortal Geometry (CD Album – Metropolis Records)
Genre/Influences: EBM, dark-electro, industrial.
Background/Info: Set up in the late 80s by Canadian musician Don Gordon, Numb became an influential band and especially during the 90s. The sound became progressively harder, reaching a kind of hard-core industrial style. Twenty one years after the last album (cf. “Language Of Silence” released on the legendary Zoth Ommog label), Numb is back!
Content: Forget about the albums released in the 90s, “Mortal Geometry” sounds as the ‘new’ Numb or should I say a return to the sources. The songs are moving in between sophisticated EBM and dark/minimal electronics with an industrial flavor on top. The songs are carried by solid bass lines, industrial sound treatments and a few trance passages. I also noticed a few more cinematic-inspired cuts. There are several instrumental tracks featured while most of the vocal parts feel a bit like an extra effect.
+ + + : This album has nothing to do with the Numb-releases we’ve heard in the 90s. The electronic compositions have this Canadian sophisticated sound, which might remind a few other compatriots. But Numb has been never a copyist and strives for a personal sound. It feels like ‘updated retro-electronics’ based upon great sound manipulations and a high tech production process. There are not a lot of vocals, but the way they’ve been produced is deadly efficient. There are several great songs featured at this opus.
– – – : Each album always has a few forgettable cuts. I’m not a huge fan of “How It Ends”, which according to me doesn’t really deserves its place among the great tracklist.
Conclusion: Numb strikes back with style and an incomparable sound intelligence. It’s amazing to see how veterans from this scene still have more creative input than young and so-called ‘talented’ artists. This is a great album!
Best songs: “When Gravity Fails”, “The Waiting Room”, “Complicit Silence”, “Summer Lawns”, “Redact”.
Rate: (8½).
Artist: https://mortalgeometry.com / www.facebook.com/groups/227641055342
Label: www.metropolis–records.com / www.facebook.com/MetropolisRecords Read the news on ‘Mortal Geometry’.
About Numb
Numb is the Vancouver, Canada project of Don Gordon, founded in 1986. Early lineups included vocalist and drummer Sean Stubbs and keyboardist David Hall, with Blair Dobson, Conan Hunter, Richard Hanley and David Collings passing through on vocals and drums over the following decade.
The band built its catalogue through the 1990s with albums including “Fixate” (1993), “Wasted Sky” (1994), “Blood Meridian” (1997) and “Language Of Silence” (1998), before Gordon disbanded Numb and moved to Vietnam. “Mortal Geometry” marks Numb’s first album in the twenty-one years since, released on Metropolis Records, whose roster has also included Velvet Acid Christ and God Module.
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