The Weathermen – The Weathermen’s Long Lost Live Instrumental Backing Tapes + Live CD Concert (DCD Album – Wool-E Discs)
Genre/Influences: EBM, electro-pop, new-beat.
Background/Info: The Belgian duo The Weathermen belong to the collective memory of all EBM heads. Set up in the 80s by Jean-Marc Lederman and singer Bruce Geduldig (who passed away in 2016) they’ve been responsible for some legendary hits such “Poison” and “Berlin”. This double disc features instrumental ‘backing tapes’ recorded in between 1988 and 2009 plus a live concert recorded in 2006. The album has been released on Dans Les Profondeurs, which is a new sub-division of the Belgian label Wool-E Discs.
Content: The instrumental disc will give you the music, but not the vocals. It’s the kind of ‘backing tapes’ bands often used when playing live. It’s a bit strange to get these songs as instrumentals, but it’s a way to focus only on the music. The songs were originally released in between 1988 and 2009 and will bring good old memories alive; from EBM inspired cuts to electro-pop to the unavoidable “Poison”, which even became a new-beat hit.
The second disc is a live recording that took place in Hoogstraten (Belgium) featuring 14 songs and some of the unavoidable hits such as “Poison”, “Berlin”, “Bang!”, “Punishment Park” ao. It also is an opportunity to rediscover the live spirit of the band, which had something funny, but also danceable.
+ + + : This album is mainly meant to please the die-hard fans of The Weathermen. The live disc is an opportunity to rediscover some of the band’s most famous hits in history, as well as the most eclectic. The Weathermen were hard to label as one specific genre and that’s probably why they’ve been linked with EBM, new-beat and even techno. Some tracks had a pretty pop-touch with groovy sequences (cf. “Transit”). The album has been packed in a cool digipak format with a very informative booklet inside.
– – – : You really have to be a fan to buy this album, but that’s why it’s a limited release and only featuring ‘rare’ material.
Conclusion: This work is not exactly an anthology, but a rarity! I’m sure there’ll be a kind of ‘best of’ album with some rarities and remixes as a bonus.
Best songs: “Posion”, “Berlin”, “Transit”, “Bang” + “Berlin”, “Bang!”, “Poison”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.facebook.com/THE–WEATHERMEN-6188693590
Label: www.wool–e–discs.be / www.facebook.com/woolediscs
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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.
