First, the back-story. In 2007, Daniel Graves released the album ‘Blood Spills Not Far from the Wound’ under the moniker “Necessary Response”. It was a collection of songs originally intended for release on ‘Close to Human’, the debut Aesthetic Perfection album, but their less aggressive nature lead to their removal. At the time, his European label felt that Aesthetic Perfection should be a strictly “aggrotech” act and not confuse the scene with such a varied and dynamic record. Young and impressionable, Graves relented and allowed the label to split the band in two leading to the creation of “Necessary Response”. After one record, Daniel declared the project dead and focused entirely on Aesthetic Perfection.
As the press release makes clear, this is not your typical album re-release, but a complete re-envisioning of a record that never was. Graves has finally brought this album back into the Aesthetic Perfection fold, bringing the band one step closer to what he’s always wanted it to be.
Aesthetic Perfection have been on something of a roll of late, what with the finely-honed electro-pop album that was ‘‘Til Death’ last year, and the lighthearted piano-led acoustic live album ‘Imperfect’ in the spring of 2015. It may seem an odd time to dredge the beds of their early career, but then, why not? Making peace with the past is the only real way to move forwards, after all.
It’s worth also bearing in mind the band Ministry were before ‘Twitch’, the album which marked the turning point from a chart-friendly electro-pop sound toward a harsher, darker sound that would manifest itself fully on ‘The Land of Rape and Honey’. It’s hard to reconcile the band that released ‘Psalm 69’ with the act behind ‘With Sympathy’, but that’s simply the way it goes.
|
And so it is with Aesthetic Perfection, only perhaps to a lesser extent. If anything, the reworked ‘Blood Spills Not Far From The Wound’ provides a timely and well-placed reminder of the band’s lineage following ‘’Til Death’. It’s a tidy set of electro-pop which calls to mind early Depeche Mode and ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ era Nine Inch Nails (I’m not about to contest the greatness or intensity of this album, but in the scheme of what followed, it’s clear the extent to which it can be called an electro-pop album).
Its sound is dancefloor-friendly, in a retro 80s disco kind of way, and as such, there is a slightly dated feel to many of the tracks, including the skittering synths of uptempo electrogoth trance tracks like ‘Tomorrow.’ And the thumping hardfloor groove of ‘All For the Lost’, which spills into the depressing realms of 90s euphoric chart dance with its Eurobeat synths (it’s not quite Eifel 65, but…). Still, it bounces along easily enough, and it’s essential to view this work in context. What it lacks in edge it makes up for in the insight it provides into the evolution of Daniel Graves’ output.
Aesthetic Perfection Online
|
