mindFIELD

Category: EBM
Album: Singularity

Firmly taking hold of the currently popular synthpop sensibility circulating through the industrial underground and giving it a good shove back into the territory of thick-sounding dark dance grooves, mindFIELD takes the better parts of the two sounds and makes them into a superior whole. Taking the tired and overused melodic male vocal that is often butchered by a variety of up and coming EBM acts and making it seem perfectly fitting, Gabriel Shaw delivers music that is satisfying to anyone who enjoys the lighter side of industrial. The sound is not underburdened with a lack of background noise and variety of sounds within the song structure. Minimalism is not what mindFIELD is about, quite fortunately. It’s a fine combination of the style and structure of haujobb combined with the sensibilities and tone of Unlearn-era Psykosonik. Even the darkest songs keep a strong dance beat and songs like “Out There” and “1:1.618” deliver a sound that is up for competition with most any electronic band out there today, even though it was recorded entirely on computer and without any of the more expensive and fancy tricks of a studio album.

The songs do blend a bit into one another with the similarities of keyboard tones and never-changing consistency of vocal style, to the point that the whole seems a bit too homogenous, but when the electro is kept so compellingly interesting and bereft of many of the clichés that seem to burden EBM these days, a little repetitiveness is entirely forgivable.

 

from ReGen Magazine (~10/2004)