Restricted Area - Fun and Fearless

Now Peter Elm have released his second album 'Fun and Fearless', but this time it's a collaboration with Emma Johansson. This album have partly been mixed in Dupont Studios (Dupont are signed at the same label as Restriced Area) and I think you almost instantly can hear that Dupont have been slightly involved or at least have been used as an inspiration. Some parts of the CD reminds me very much of the way Dupont put their songs together, specially the first track "Tumbledown".

The first time I heard "I Still Believe" I stared at my CD-player and started to wonder if it had said "Beam me up Scotty" and had been replaced by a CD-exchanger. Then I tried to remember if I have an Elegant Machinery CD or not. Non of this is true and this means that Restricted Area suddenly have made a synthpop track were the sound is pretty much alike Elegant Machinery's song "Hard to Handle" from 'Shattered Grounds'.

Sometimes tasteful with tracks like "Tumbledown", "Come With Me" and "Scorn", but the mix of different genres is just as confusing as the their first record, and the track "Mitt allt" ("My everything") where Peter moans "Du är så skön... " ("You feel so nice...") with a porn voice that would make Ron Jeremy jealous. This record feels like another close miss from Restriced Area. No, I changed my mind; this is more like an opened case miss.

This review was written 2004 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2004