reADJUST - Alive...!

ReADJUST wasted no time after releasing 2011's 'Mindwalk', following up less than a year later with 'Alive!'. This release includes ten original tracks and seven remixes, and while it isn't quite as good as 'Mindwalk', it is an overall promising contribution to the genre.

ReADJUST's major strength lies in their instrumentals. They are great at blending synth lines and bass beats that are more often found in EBM, having a real knack for amping up the aggression with supporting sounds and vocals, making them work well as harsh EBM. Despite the fact that these instrumentals are more melodic than your average harsh EBM song, there's definitely no mistaking them for anything but that. It's a delicate balance that takes talent to pull off, and they always do it well. 'Alive!' is no exception - ReADJUST again delivers good, solid melodies consistently throughout the album.

While I love the melodies that ReADJUST produces, they again fall prey on 'Alive!' to the consistent downfall that I've heard in former albums: the vocals. They take the muffled, whispery, very distorted approach to vocal styling, and while this works for some bands, it doesn't meld well with the genre-defying melodic style of their instrumentals. The monotonous delivery is overwhelmed by the flowing melodies. A better balance between synths and vocals is needed in order to create truly strong tracks. These comments are not meant to be interpreted as saying that vocalist Jay is untalented. That's not the case. He simply needs to back off on the distortion and give them a bit more of a melodic feel.

A few songs of note on the album: "Wahre Helden" is by far the best original track, with energetic, club-worthy synths. The chorus is particularly good - I can envision the crowd really jumping around on the dancefloor to it. This song is an exception to the issue I called out in regard to vocals. They work very well in this song. While there is only a slight changeup to the styling, pushed and emphasized a bit more than other tracks, there's a harmony between the vocals and instrumentals that isn't present in most other tracks. Intro track "Alone" is another exception to the issue (although a bit less so), The instrumentals are very EBM, verging on futurepop in their styling, providing quite an interesting contrast to the aggressive vocals. The beat is simple and a bit too prominent, but it's a very good song overall. "Trauflor", while less so than the previous tracks I mentioned, also breaks away a bit from the issue with vocals, flowing well with the powerful, layered synths.

As for the remixes, they're good contributions overall, but there are a few I'd like to call out here. The remixes of "Dead Whore" by Die Braut and TraKKtor are particularly well done - they stand out above the rest, and above many of the original tracks as well. Both artists really make the song their own. Die Braut especially puts their stamp on the song. There's no mistaking it - in fact, upon my first play through of the album, I thought that I was listening to an original Die Braut track and wondered what it was doing on another artist's album. ES23's remix of "Pride" is interesting as well, giving it an EBM sound that makes it far more dancefloor-worthy than the original.

ReADJUST could learn a lot from some of the remixes on 'Alive!' because they improve upon the vocal style quite a bit - the two remixes of "Dead Whore" and Final Illusion's remix of "No Surrender" did a particularly good job of improving them. The vocals here and, to a lesser extent, in other remixes are made fuller and less distorted. They do a better job of highlighting Jay's talent and work more harmoniously with the instrumentals. This is the direction ReADJUST should take with their vocals.

Overall, 'Alive!' is a good contribution to the harsh EBM genre. Their talent for creating strong melodies makes them stand apart from most other harsh EBM artists. If they can manage to improve the vocals in future releases, ReADJUST will be a power to be reckoned with. Jun 01 2012