This review was commissioned. However, it bears no weight on the score or critique.
Ya know, Tachion-X wasn’t everything that I thought he was going to be when I first booted up his album “5120”. I read the normal shit: industrial, synthwave, EBM, etc. and I was expecting a bit of a clone of a lot of other bands in the genre. Darksynth Perturbator wannabes who don’t sound that great and can’t get a decent thing going for themselves without being a shell of something greater. But upon hitting that play button I found myself appreciating the differences between Tachion-X and a lot of similar projects. That primarily being an actual cinematic zone the producer finds himself in, rather than wasted and repetitive dancefloor numbers.
The first song on the album ‘U.L.L.A-X’ could easily read into a cyberpunk movie as the title credit song. A slow build-up featuring a few guitar riffs eventually opens up into a industrial beat-driven piece; but not fast enough for the dancefloor. Slow enough to get you nodding, to get you into the groove, without every taking away the cybernetic twist a la the trickles of code as samples, haywire in other words.
‘Monochrome’ keeps the spirit of the album alive combining darksynth trappings with industrial foreplay; more of a curiosity beat, something that wouldn’t feel too out of place in Shadowrun. ‘The Opposer’ comes in next, and it’s a smooth and villainous song echoing cities of the future with towering skyscrapers, or a smooth ride through the net.
‘Paranoia’ is a bit stompier, a bit crunchier, but also a bit annoying. The amount of times the robotic sample saying ‘Paranoia’ is a bit too much. And the monologue present in the middle is okay at best and detracts from the whole experience. All in all, a bit basic in comparison to what we’ve seen so far. And I get what he was going for; a bit of a robotic EBM experience, but it doesn’t do it for me.
‘Last Odyssey’ has a bit of an 8-bit touch, sounding off like something that should play out on a retro game console. A quick two-and-a-half minute ballad that sounds epic, as if the hero has just awoken and is about to reign hell. Despite the next song’s title, ‘Tonight Is The Night – Serial Killer’ comes off rather smooth with a few guitar string plucks amongst the crystallized synths.
‘Rosemary’s Lullaby’ is fun, if not a bit unestablished in comparison to some of the other songs we’ve seen on the album. A bit repetitious in its beat, though it is broken up multiple times throughout by interesting little twists. Not the best on the album, but nothing terrible either. ‘Corroding State’ and ‘Space Tourist’ alike follow a similar path of some of the other chill songs on the album, mixing relaxing synths with electric guitars. The final song on the album is a decent ode to what’s come before but is ruined by the nothingness that follows in the last forty-five seconds or so. Maybe some people will enjoy it, but I’ve seen this trick pulled off by one too many bands to have it hold any weight.
There’s some good here, some things that are middling, but nothing too terrible. Sure, there are a few things that could have been tightened up; production could have been better as far as mixing / mastering goes. But I think that Tachion-X nailed his concept, his fusion of industrial and synthwave and all things cyberpunk without ever falling into a pit of being similar to other bands in the arena. And that alone is worth some points. This is a great start that can easily be improved upon and I’m interested in seeing where he goes next.
