Unitary - Second to None

Johan Hansson is the man behind Unitary. He has earlier released a CD single with four tracks and has also been on two of Memento Materia's compilations, but then using another name.

This record is an off label production and are eight tracks long. Johan himself calls his music for Futurepop, but I would rather say that it sounds like pure EBM, but that's just a matter of opinion. Everything on this record is made with only one hardware component (a triton WS) which means that no software at all have been used. Unfortunately you can hear this sometimes and I would have liked a couple of nice effects, especially on the voice.

Much time has been spent on the lyrics because Johan want them to point to culture and ideological thoughts. He also wants to deliver some strong feelings and emotions. I can just simply agree and think that the lyrics have a good standard.

The record has its bright moments and on the whole it is a good production, although you feel that it sometimes sounds like everything else. The track "Via Dolorsa" made me raise my eyebrows and smile with its sampled coir and it's kind of similar with Apoptygma Berzerk's "Love Never Dies". Beautiful and smart.

This review was written 2003 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2003