Deathstars - Night Electric Night

Published February 06 2009

*=Staff's pick	Chertograd Night Electric Night* Death Dies Hard* Mark Of The Gun Via The End* Blood Stained Blondes Babylon The Fuel Ignites Arclight Venus In Arms Opium*

Genre	Deathglam	Whiplasher Bernadotte	Vocals
Tracks	11	Nightmare Industries	Guitar
Runningtime	44 Min.	Cat Casino	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Skinny Disco	Bass
Release	30 January 2009	Bone W Machine	Drums
Country	Sweden	Nightmare Industries	Keyboard
Similar artists	Rammstein, Sisters Of Mercy

After the flawed debut album Synthetic Generation, Deathstars segued into a more sophisticated sound for the follow-up Termination Bliss and got both critics and fans jumping with joy. Those who hoped that the group would take their deathglam into a whole new direction with Night Electric Night will be severely disappointed; instead the new album is rather Termination Bliss with more of everything. More keyboards, more female vocals, more larger-than-life lyrics from Whiplasher Bernadotte. And, crucially, slightly better songs.

It's not that hard to tick off all the ingredients that made Termination Bliss a hit, if you put your mind to it. It starts off with a slow, almost symphonic piece (Chertograd), followed by a stomping anthem with plenty of machine-like riffs (the title track). Then we have the single that is just impossible to stop humming along to (Death Dies Hard) and of course an emotional ballad that hits all the right notes (Via The End).

What started out like a rather cheap Marilyn Manson-imitation has turned into something both fresh and unique. Much of the honour should of course be given to the extravagant vocalist Whiplasher Bernadotte, whose dark and intriguing singing voice makes this impossible to mistake for anything other than a Deathstars-release. The main song writer Nightmare Industries has once again produced the record splendidly, and crammed pop hooks and sweeping keyboard-strings into every single song. At the same time Deathstars is still the most German-sounding Swedish band around, and Rammstein is obviously still a massive influence, most notably in songs like Arclight and the title track.

If you have no problem with Deathstars playing it safe, I'm sure you will have as much fun with Night Electric Night as I'm having. It will take a rather spectacular metal-year if this effort is to be pushed out of my best-albums-of-2009-list by the end of the year.

See also review of: Termination Bliss , Cyanide

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	8	8	8	8

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Niklas