Die Braut - Psychotherapy

Despite its German name, Die Braut is a member of the talented legion of Latin dark electro/harsh EBM bands. 'World of Lies' is the band's third release, and an interesting contribution to the genre.

Before I dive into the "whys" of this, I'd like to highlight Die Braut's vocal style overall. Now, I've never been much of one for female vocals. Not sure why - they just usually don't do it for me. But Die Braut is an exception. Vocalist Katia Figueroa Letelier is one of the rare female leads in a genre overwhelmingly dominated by men, and she holds her own, mirroring the growling vocal style that is one of the elements that define dark electro. So, I suppose that my general lack of interest in female vocals doesn't really matter when it comes to a band using this vocal style, but it deserves calling out. I've read criticisms here and there stating that she whispers a bit too much, but I personally don't have a problem with it, and from a practical standpoint it's far easier for a female to consistently pull that style off than the all-out aggression you hear from many male vocalists in the genre.

Now on to why I stated that 'World of Lies' is an interesting contribution. Programmer Cristián Soto Vanelli has done something rather unique with the main keyboard refrains on this album. After listening to the entire album, I got a sense that he created a general concept for the sound - that he fell in love with a set of notes and built several songs upon that. They aren't repetitive, but rather sound like different interpretations of a base concept, each with an audible link to the song that preceded it (the links fade as you move forward, with each song most strongly recalling the one directly before it). Almost every song seems to have been deliberately placed to maintain a flow of sound. Played as a whole, 'World of Lies' has a symphony-esque feel to it, following the basic structure in which elements are consistently recalled to join all segments into a single piece. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other album in the genre that has used this method quite to this extent.

This refrain-recall feature isn't something I heard throughout every song. Rather, the flow occurs most noticeably among the following tracks: "The New Man" > "Flüchtling" > "Elend...Ein Schritt Zum Tod" > "Parricida Perpetuo" > "Defending You (I Want Defend You!)" > "Die Figur" (numbered, these are tracks 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9). These refrains overall create, to varying degrees, infectious melodies supported by solid bass beats and basslines that make for solidly danceable tracks overall. I can envision "Flüchtling" and "Parricida Perpetuo" as being big hits on the dancefloor, having consistent intensity that is guaranteed to keep bodies moving.

While the vocals are fairly consistently well done throughout much of the album, and the synths are catchy, with some interesting elements scattered here and there (such as the morph into a solidly EBM sound in "The New Man" and a few interesting instrumental breaks in "Zoopsychic"), 'World of Lies' loses momentum for the last three tracks. They simply aren't as good as those that precede them. For the most part, there isn't any one thing I can point out that makes these tracks less listenable than earlier tracks (although I can say that the throbbing bassline in "Wenn Das Spiel Beginnt" sounds to me oddly out of synch with the rest of the instrumentals), other than to say that I just didn't respond to the melodies or song structures as well as I did to previous tracks. Add to that the fact that the first track is a short instrumental intro and "Ella Maquiavela" is also a mostly instrumental track (I will say here that both were fairly well done, but that I have a general bias against instrumental tracks as a whole and unless they're very powerful I consider them to be throwaway tracks), and you have an album where only half of songs are of real quality. However, between my appreciation of the concept of the album and my appreciation for the danceability of a few of the tracks, the overall quality of 'World of Lies' is bolstered a bit. Die Braut isn't one of the best Latin dark electro bands out there, but they're moving and evolving in an interesting direction, and I can certainly see them gaining headway in the future. Apr 13 2012