Girls Under Glass

Category: Electro-Pop
Album: Zyklus

I’ll admit that I’m a bit surprised. I always figured, from the snippets I had heard, that Girls Under Glass was some whining dark moping goth bitchfest, likely full of cello and crap. But, surprisingly, it’s not.

What I seem to have here is a very German electro act that is balanced by moments of full on industrial-rock goodness. The balance is very strange, because one moment you’re in the midst of Germanic EBM-pop and, the next thing you know, you’ve got some good guitar in there, which has its moments where it takes on an 80’s radio-rock tone (ala Journey, minus Steve Perry). Then it’s straight into synthpop. It’s an odd assortment.

Undoubtedly, this is not a CD for someone who’s only going to want to pin down one genre or another. It might be a little too eccentric for the EBM-listener and it’s definitely not sufficiently upbeat and hard for the industrial-rock enthusiast. But the album does make for interesting listening if you’re someone of a very varied taste, because this album has everything from the saccharine ballad to the dancefloor track and back again.

At least every bit of it is done with an admirable sense of style and very sufficient quality. It is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, most likely not even my own, but it’s good to yet again see Metropolis embracing diversification in their sound and hopefully this will lead back to the days of a more diverse sound in the scene and more open minds.

 

from ReGen Magazine (~4/2005)