Metroland - Thalys

Kicking off their Vinyl division, Alfa-Matrix has allowed the duo behind Metroland to kick off this very special package with their latest album, Thalys, named after the internationall, high speed railway company. Seven tracks included, two are original titled Thalys and From Station To Station, while the rest are reworks and remixes by Jonteknik, Northern Kind, and Paul Kendall.

The title track is fairly straightforward; robotic vocals hit nicely over a soft layer of electronic music spanning a little over eleven minutes. The samples laid within really get the feeling that you're, well, on one of Thalys' trains. Overall, this song served as swell background music and had a nice appeal to it, but failed to really capture my attention. Throughout the span of eleven minutes this track played, I really found myself enjoying it for half the time. Reason being was because throughout much of the duration of the track, not much really changed up from here and there; the electronic work was sooth, and nice, and well coordinated, but not moving in a way to keep the listener engaged.

The Paul Kendall remix of the track added a bit more power to the notes, his minimalist style along with glitch electronics made for some interesting effects. The London Edit of the track didn't really change up much, and slept with the same notes as the original did.

Slightly reworked came in Northern Kind's remix of the song. And, while it did have its own vibe to it, it much the same stayed very true to the original. I felt like I was listening to more of an extension of the song rather than a remix. However, Jonteknik's version of the song changed nicely; rather than trying to maintain in the same liking, this artist went ahead and hit more notes with the synths, and had less focus on the minimal electronics that presented themselves.

The second original track on the album, From Station To Station, had a bit more of a steady rhythm, and the trademark sampling and robotic vocals, along with the fair amount of use of electronic minimalism, sort of reminded me of the title track. And that's not good; I felt like this song just wasn't necessary. The Elemental rework just seemed as if it made it a bit more loud, the levels enhanced, so I found it quite boring.

And, that's where this album ended off. I can't say this was terrible by any means; but I can say that it didn't manage to impress me all too much, either. With same sounding songs on it, some of the remixers doing a better job than the artist, I really could not get into this release. Aug 18 2014