Search - Razor Skyline :: Fade & Sustain

Gothic rock of the electro variety is the Razor Skyline's milieu, chock full of muscular beats, distorted guitar riffs, and sequenced keyboards. Vocalist Karen Kardell provides a mixture of ethereal prettiness and Harpy-like menace, and the result is competent and club-ready, if not exactly anything that will surprise longtime listeners of the genre. Still, Fade and Sustain, the band's second album, contains a bit more than the usual morose posturing that tends to pass for goth; Kardell's topics range from domestic abuse ("Criminal Heart") to rants against phoniness ("Oblivious") to sample-infused ruminations on the cosmos ("Circle the Stars") that are handled thoughtfully, if a bit vaguely. File this band somewhere between the soulful stomp of Battery and the cool, distant electro of Regenerator. --Steve Landau