 |
 |
 |
Artist: KEEN
Album: Dying Life
Year: 2005
Oh look, KeeN has a new release. To be honest, this
newsflash didn’t manage to give me some kind of extatic
feeling. Beeing known with their first single (‘Nailing
Keen’) that totally didn’t appeal to me at all, I didn’t
expect much of this “Dying Life” EP. But... after only
two minutes of a total of 28 minutes, I decided to
recall my preverious opinion!
Between the release of the first single (April 2003) and
the release of this EP (August 2005) this Italian band
didn’t waste any time! They manage to reach the finals
of the highly rated ‘I.Tim Tou Festival’ in 2003 and
2004 and one year later they were chosen to support
Marilyn Manson on the Italian show of the ‘Against All
Gods’ tour. But, and this is more important for me,
musically they have taken one (or maybe two or three?)
big step(s) forward! While ‘Nailing Keen’ (2003) sounded
a little bit flat and uninspiring (specially the
vocals!), they show us with this new release that they
have finally found a perfect balance between metal,
electro, EBM and even a little bit of melodic black
metal! ‘Swallow’ opens with an EBM likely intro, but
after 20 seconds the metal side of this band wakes up
and sounds ready to destroy. The song that follows
sounds pretty catchy, and can be recommended to both
gothic and metal fans! ‘Dancing With Desire’ could go
about the girl next door if you live in my house (since
her name is Desiré, which is a normal Dutch name yes!).
I don’t think these guys know her anyways, so better
lets talk about the music now. The song can be described
as a mixture of rock ‘n roll, industrial and even a
little punk here and there. It has a very powerful
start, but in the end this song turns out to be an easy
listening one. Something I like to mention here is the
vocals. As I mentioned before, I didn’t like them at
first, but this Shirley person shows a huge progression
on this record and specially on this song! ‘Anthem of a
Little Child’ is lyrically the best song of this record
and sonically the most experimental one. A spicy
cocktail of 50% EBM/electro, 30% gothic and 20% metal is
a good way to describe it. Some people will love it,
some will not. I do! ‘Mechanical Rusting Doll’ is more
metal based again. Musically it is definitely one to
remember, and names like Division Alpha and Latexxx
Teens come in mind immidiately. People who know me are
familiar with the fact that I absolutely love Division
Alpha, so they will understand that I have nothing bad
to say about this song! ‘Dying Life’ is the title track
of this EP. Its a good song again, in vein of the other
songs of the record. Industrial and EBM are the
foundation, decorated with metal and lots of creativity.
Decent song musically again. The EP ends with the only
song written in Italian, although the title ‘Sleeping
Beauty’ doesn’t tell you that immidiately. This is a
song with lots of orchestral influences and reminds me
in a way to the Vigilante song ‘Before’. This song is
taken from the Original Soundtrack of the short movie
‘La Bella Addormentata’ (for a translation just have a
look at the track title) and appears on this record as a
bonus track. Well people, now you expect some final
words of me as usual? Lets do it different this time!
This band has tought me a lesson: do not waste any time!
Fans of Latexxx Teens, Kubrick, Division Alpha, and as
well fans of bands like Marilyn Manson and HIM: write
shirley@keen-zone.com!
Vote: 90 / 100
Review by: Gerardo |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
01. Swallow
02. Dancing With Desire
03. Anthem Of A Little
Child
04. Mechanical Rusting
Doll
05. Dying Life
06. Sleeping Beauty
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
