Outpost11 – Structural Defects (Album – Advoxya Records)

Genre/Influences: EBM, Dark-Electro.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Russian project Outpost11 strikes back with a third album. Previous productions revealed an interesting EBM format with some retro-elements on top. Rodion Skityaev is back on track and brings us fifteen new cuts. Notice by the way there’s also a double CD edition available featuring a bonus disc with some remixes.

Content: “Structural Defects” takes off in a rather surprising way by a heavy, harsh approach followed by a pure bombastic song. Quite progressively the album evolves towards a more familiar sound, where you’ll notice the influence of Canadian bands like Skinny Puppy and Frontline Assembly. The tracks are supported with cold melody lines, which also come back at the harder cuts. The work indeed evolves again towards harsher pieces.

The CD format reveals two more songs than the digital edit and both cuts definitely belong to the best part of the album. One of them is a remix by Asdean.

+ + + : I should say forget the very first cuts, which are more into a kind of chaos, but the album starts to be interesting right after the debut part. We here discover a well-crafted production merging EBM and Dark-Electronics together. The obvious Skinny Puppy influence resulted in some cool songs. I especially recommend “Out Of Control”, “Bad Signal” and the more ghost-like “Wageslaves”. The remix of “Bad Signal” by Asdean is a great bonus piece and even the best cut from the album.

– – – : This work is more versatile than previous albums. Both debut tracks took me by surprise, but unfortunately in a bad way. There’s nothing wrong with fast rhythms, but it’s not in harmony with the melody lines.

Conclusion: Outpost11 for the very first time didn’t take me by surprise although the work features a few cool and accomplished Electro tracks.

Best songs: “Bad Signal – Asdean Rmx”, “Out Of Control”, “Bad Signal”, “Wageslaves”, “Destroy”.

Rate: 7½.

Artist: www.facebook.com/outpost11band

Label: www.advoxya-records.com / www.facebook.com/pages/Advoxya-Records/265765706059

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