The title of the penultimate track on ‘Fear of the Unknown’, entitled ‘Shards of Brilliance’ is a fair summary of the album as a whole.
‘Stay With the Familiar’ crashes in with some heavyweight urban beats, a fusion of industrial hip-hop and expansive electronica. Contrastingly, ‘Moonlit Tea Party’ is a beautiful and expansive instrumental piece, with sweeping strings pooling light over beats that are more reserved yet still powerful, and ‘Like An Angel’s Feather’ crosses industrialised tribal beats with epic choral flights to impressive effect.
‘My Obligation’ brings atmospheric electronica with sub-NIN industrial percussion and a few lashings of EBM darkness. Atmospheric, but unsatisfying. The music box tinkle of ‘The Glass Kingdom’ offers little other than a brief change of tone, but sounds forced and simply interrupts the album’s flow.
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The problem is that so much of the album is neither beautiful or dramatic, and there’s a sense that Atiq & EnK are holding back. The issue doesn’t lie so much with a fear of the unknown but a seeming unwillingness to truly commit to making the leap into the dark.
Atiq & EnK Online
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