Love Terror - GLAMOUR

Love Terror is an industrial music project influenced by coldwave, darkwave, new wave, and other such genres. As far as I can see on their Bandcamp page, the project was formed in 2018 by vocalist and guitarist Simon Rook. Their first single is titled 'The Darkest Touch' and was released on September 1st, 2018. After a year-and-a-half, Love Terror returned with the new double "Red Light Fashion", which featured Rook on guitars and vocals, Stefan Denshi and Charles 404 on keys, and Daniel-808 on drums. This teased Love Terror's forthcoming album, "GLAMOUR", which released just two months after on December 4th, 2020. And, well, that is what I'm here to discuss; the eight track debut, full-length album from Love Terror.



I was immeasurably impressed by the instrumentation on "GLAMOUR" through and through. Everything is packed in a slight retro sleeve, giving off the effect that this music could have been released in the hey-day of electro-industrial - but we are blessed to receive the album at this point in our life. Clean percussion kicks through the first three minutes of 'Rip The Stitch', as brilliant electronic trickles pass through the song. It's an easy song to get lost in. What I found riveting about the song, as well, is that at the three minute mark the beats completely fade out. What comes in next is an intermission-like, dark ambient and light noise piece. What sounds like an old film running, the disturbing cries of women, the sound of a camera shuttering, and slight drum work finish out the rest of the song. 

I was also a fan of the song 'Red Light Fashion'. As stated on the double's original Bandcamp page, this song is meant to support sex workers around the world. This song reminds me of a bunch of modern italo-disco tracks mixed with relative EBM and industrial mechanics to keep the sound much more interesting and refreshing. I was also huge into the instrumental track 'Past the Infinite Darkness'. Low and cosmic synths play out throughout the majority of the song which make it an extremely chill piece. After listening to the more ravaging tracks on the album, this was a brilliant second-to-last song on the album.

However, as much as I enjoyed a lot of the instrumentals on the album, not all is golden in the land of synthesizers. Where the album is held back for the most part are the vocals. While they are not completely ostracizing nor do they make me want to turn off the music as soon as they come on, there are times when I wish that Rook would hush so the music could play out uninterrupted. Going back to 'Rip The Stitch', which I praised earlier in the review, I always winced a bit on each play of the album when Rook began to sing and shout. The attempt is there to carry a tune, but often times Rook sounds like he's singing for a different song as they simply cannot match the wonderful beats they are producing. The digitized vocals, however, whether sampled or not, are phenomenal and fit both the theme and the style of the track. More of that and less of the shouting would have been welcomed.

This complaint carries out to other songs on the album, as well, not just 'Rip The Stitch'. I had similar thoughts with 'Life of The Party', 'Beast In The Thread', 'Senketsu', 'Dreams In Neon', and 'The House of Gold'. The only song on the album where I found the vocals to be fitting was the aforementioned 'Red Light Fashion'. The only time I found them to be underwhelming was when Rook shouted the title of the track in the song and held the note. Again, quieting down some and allowing the italo-disco influenced beats to play out instead would have made the song that much better. 

Though I do have my fair share of complaints about Rook's chords on the album, I can say that on repeated visits to the album, I found myself enjoying it. I was not head-over-heels for it, but I found myself impressed by what Rook was able to achieve with this album. I do believe that as time goes on Love Terror will continue to improve both their chords and their already stellar instrumentals till their vocals will match the power of their synthetic might. Scoring the album was a bit tough. In the end I have to admit that Love Terror's instrumental work won me over, so I became very comfortable giving it a solid six-and-a-half out of ten. I'm looking forward to more of what they put out in the future! 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.
Feb 22 2021