The Flood - In Love or Despair

It's hard not to compare artists to other artists. Each and every artist want to be unique, and in many ways, each and every single one is, however, your mind constantly pick up influences which you use, even if you are not aware of it. And so does it in the mind of the reviewer, the brain works that way, it constantly, and straight away, try to pick up similarities with something it has experienced before. So I have decided not to fight it, instead, embrace it.

The debut album 'In Love or Despair' from the German duo The Flood sounds a somewhat like Deine Lakaien, and I think it's mainly the vocals and also the not-according-to-the-norm-of-the-electronic-music-academy's way to structure sounds. However, if you think Deine Lakaien is a bit too much avant garde for you, The Flood was molded by a form from the 80's synthpop.

It's a varied album blending the slow driven with the dance floor oriented material. My favorite track of the album, "Be Like This" stands somewhere in the middle in this 14 track release. This album has a very high lowest point, and the lowest point on this album are the somewhat out of place "Don't Miss You" (but it's quite unfair, since I enjoy the vocals of the chorus) and "High Above".

Luckily, this album is packed with high points, like the should-be-dancefloor-hit "The Right Time", "Never Wanted", "Tell A Lie", "Eyes To Drown", "Backin 1989", "Show Them" and not to forget, the final seconds of the album in "Don't Speak So Loud" WILL give you goose bumps. A grande finale worth to mention.

There's a lot of energy in this album, a lot of life, never mind how slow going some of the song are. The Flood has created something beautiful and out of the ordinary, something in this day of copy and paste, I adore.

'In Love or Despair' really deliver, and with time and coming releases, we could have something extraordinary on our hands, this is after all, this is a debut album. Nevertheless, I think you want to be a part of this. Jan 15 2014