2nd Civilization - Let's Play

It's been two years since Belgian act 2nd Civilization rose from the ashes of their '89 and '90 demo recordings, re-fleshing the old school tracks with new age gimmicks to form Report From The Dark. With a stellar reception from the album, they were sure to not place themselves back into a dormant state, and that is apparent as today, Let\'s Play is releasing.

Twelve tracks of combining elements from genres such as EBM, darkwave, and electropop all come to fruition through Koen D's voice, along side his and Patrick D's skills on the synths.

Walk It Off begins our little dance, and we're put in the midst of an EBM driven song backed by various electronic elements. There's a bit of what sounds like an Asian influence in certain parts, especially during the introduction. The vocals are deeper in delivery, slightly pulling off a growl, but nothing too detrimental to destroy the sooth feeling of the track.

The Crash had some pretty interesting lyrics, comparing a car crash to the disturbed and self-destructive thoughts and patterns of life of the main character's mind. It was really catchy, and got me hooked right away. Not only that, but the electronic beat presented was decent.

Fuck Up My Mind was more laid back, kicking in with faster, shorter electronic elements and looping lines. The next song was named after one of sci-fi and horror film's greatest influences, John Carpenter. The spooky element kicks in as well, with a nice piano chord ringing through, and a distorted vocal line playing over a darker themed song than what's been presented. The samples of people screaming in terror and fear only boast this ode to the filmmaker, and it serves its purpose well.

Timehunter kicked us back into the electronics that's been presented so far, and the vocals, were presented in two forms; one where they were more menacing sounding and another where they were more sooth. I preferred the more sooth chords. Games sort of continued the trend, as did Fight. Good tracks, but I didn't have much to say in terms of them being unique.

Track number eight, Brussels was slower, the vocals following suit and delivered dragged out chords alongside the slower synths. Alien Love, thankfully, did not actually implement sounds of aliens making love, as that would just sound absolutely odd. Instead, we were delivered a very futuristic sounding song that played off very nicely.

Another darker song was presented with The Virus; samples of men talking about digital viruses infecting our computers and listening in our Skype conversations encouraged shivers throughout my body. The next song, Bug Spray, delivered another track that you could shake your ass to, and the last, Heartbeat, was a beautiful instrumental that ended off the album on a high note.

And, I think the title track of the album held firmly as I went through this album; Let's Play put me into a landscape of fun with thought provoking lyrics and powerful electronic beats that mashed together into a wonderful forty four minute clash of genres. Oct 10 2014