Brilliant and timeless!
ebmAddikt | Portland Oregon | 11/07/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Alan Wilder is one of the music industry's most overlooked and under-appreciated musical artists. Not only does he possess great talent to write captivating music, he is also a master at the ar of engineering, mixing and producing. This combination of talents makes for some truely unique and mind-blowing recordings.
While Bloodline may not be the most recent or the most innovative of Alan's recordings, it is personally my favorite, not only because of it's great songs and diverse list of collaborators (such as Douglas McCarthy from Nitzer Ebb, Moby, and Toni Halliday from Curve), but also because of epic sentiment. Bloodline was released around the same time of Depeche Mode's Violator - of which Alan was still a member at the time - so you can find little elements of Violator in Bloodline too.
Alan has been busy lately, overseeing and re-mastering all of Depeche Mode's backlog CD's into 5.1 surround (yay!). He also has a new album coming out in July 2007 named 'subHuman'. Looking forward to it!!
At any rate, this review is about Recoil's Bloodline. If you've never heard it, and you like good electronic music...then you must own it! If you have the Bloodline recordings, and do not have a hard copy....why not buy *a new* one and show your support for one of the greatest recording artists of our time?
"
Interesting independent project from former Depeche Moder Al
Brad Torgersen | Seattle, WA, USA | 08/02/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I first picked this up in the spring of 1992, after having heard on the radio that Alan Wilder, of Depeche Mode fame, had released an independent electronic-rock album.
Being a big Depeche Mode fan, I didn't exactly go for every track on this album. The radio-hyped "Faith Healer" sounds not just a little like some of the material on DM's "Music for the Masses", but the singing and lyrics were so distracting, I couldn't sink my teeth into it. "The Curse" also left me nonplussed; a sort of Depeche Mode 'rap' song that worked neither as Depeche Mode, nor as rap.
Still, in spite of these two tracks, I think the album is almost single-handedly rescued by "Edge to Life", a marvelous synth-rock piece that combines Wilder's synth smarts with terrific female vocals from Curve's Toni Halliday; the two collaborating deliciously on what is, for me anyway, the signature piece of the entire effort. If ever you wondered what would happen if Depeche Mode and Curve mixed it up, this is what it would sound like; and I think it sounds darned good!
Also notable were some of the offbeat and quirky pieces, like "Electro Blues for Bukka White" and "Freeze"; the latter being a thoroughly instrumental exploration, very similar in sound and style to the "Resource" track off of the soundtrack to the time-lapse documentary, "Koyaanisqatsi."
I recommend this disc to DM fans who might be looking to broaden their horizons a bit without stepping too far beyond familiar territory, and electronic and synth rock fans seeking a decidedly different listening experience, with very little bubblegum influence from the pop mainstream."
Track Listings (7) - Disc #1