Scorched Earth Policy Lab – Escape From Hyperreality (Album – M-Tronic)

Genre/Influences: Experimental, Dark-Ambient, cinematographic.
Format: Digital.
Background/Info: Scorched Earth Policy Lab is a rather new side-project by French artist Thierry Arnal. He’s still involved with other projects such as Fragment, Amantra, Flex, TH.A ao. With this new project he has released an impressive number of self-released works since 2018.
Content: The work features 2 long duration tracks; each 20 minutes. This project wants to show the darker Ambient side of the artist and I must admit the opening piece reveals Dark-Ambient elements like a constant boiling sound wave, which is progressively running throughout the song. The next piece is not that different; linear while holding on a dark mood.
+ + + : Both tracks have been progressively built up. It’s the kind of music I can imagine accompanied by a visual performance or a movie/documentary instead of pure Dark-Ambient music. The opening track “Hyper” especially has an interesting potential. This could be the right track for a soundtrack.
– – – : If “Hyper” reveals some potential “Reality” seems to show the limits of this production; it’s too linear and repetitive, but this track is too long. Less is happening and I’m missing a climax.
Conclusion: Scorched Earth Policy Lab is not exactly the most promising project I’ve heard from the high qualitative M-Tronic roster while I’ve already heard better projects from Thierry Arnal.
Best songs: “Hyper”.
Rate: (6).
Artist: www.facebook.com/groups/238660059532801/user/100001356047716
Label: www.m-tronic.com / www.facebook.com/mtroniclabel
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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.
