ANALENA / SENSUAL LOVE

It’s never too late to split up

10”, Interstellar / Get Off

This 10” is really called “It’s never too late to split up” – what a funny way to name a record. Hopefully neither the bands nor the labels take that title seriously. Interstellar had another split-release with Turn Out and Bug which they calls “Split release for split personalities” or something like that. I love these guys for their sense of humour. And because they always release the records and the music they like the most, even if they know that it will be stuck in the shelves like cement. And because they put so much effort and energy in their releases. And because they are great guys. (Say hi to Richie. Hope the floodings didn’t hit you too bad.) Okay, that said, let’s move to the music.

Analena are the second great band after Nikad that has come to my attention (and it is hard to get my attention) who are from Croatia. They use an interesting mix of screaming-emocore and beautiful female vocals full of melodies and emotion. That really makes the songs swell and grow with energy and dynamics and then gives them relief. Take the first of the four songs on their side of this 10”: “Starcrossed lovers”, which has structure, harsh parts and the beautiful part where the singer goes “and they will dance upon the mountains by the flames”. Or at least that is what I understood, because Analena only put parts of the lyrics on the sheet. Then comes a song that is more in the vein of late-nineties-emo and the next one up is faster and more melodic in a sort of punk-sense. The last song “Walker between worlds” is another highlight musically, the lyrics are somewhat too esoteric for my taste, but hey, that is not my cup of tea, is it? In the liner notes Analena wrote something nice: “Take care and be happy wherever you go.” That made me think: first the lyrics of some of the songs aren’t that optimistic. Actually, they are quite grey and pessimistic, some are even desperate and toy with the notion that the only possibility to happiness is fighting for that slim chance of hope that is still left. Second, is that really possible? To be happy wherever you go? What are the points that have to be cleared and settled to make that possible? Sure, being happy is a wonderful thing, but regularly, being happy is equalled to being satisfied, fed and healthy in our society. Sure, Analena are one of those bands that dream of societies different from ours and tell us about them, but I took that remark personally and tried to interpret it onto my own private life at this moment of time. Maybe I should stop being so “emo”. I am way too old for that. Or maybe this is the start of my old-age-crisis? Well..

If you are from Austria and interested in guitar-driven music or noiserock, you’ll have heard about Sensual Love. This is their newest release after the “within dirty places” on Invertebrata Records. Okay, so these songs were already recorded last year. Actually, I guess, the whole records was released some months ago, but – as I already said a dozen times in different places – I have stepped out of the rat race of having to be the first to review a record, nor do I want to be fast or on time. This is not a news site but a fanzine-site. Okay, back to music. Sensual Love present themselves somewhat cleaner and not as harsh as I remember them, with more variations and dynamics. Still, this is music that makes me think of the cold winters when I turned a grown-up, when I came to grips with my studies at the university, started my first fanzine – what I might regard as my best years, because thanks to the support of my parents I could do more or less what I wanted to. And I did. Some of you might call Sensual Love’s style old-fashioned (though I am not old) but on the one hand I am happy that this sound still exists, and on the other hand, listening back to the old records from back then, I realise how much has changed and that Sensual Love do present a modern style of music, and it is only to me that noise-rocks always smells of late Eighties / early Nineties. Moreover, I like to be reminded of those days. All in all, I don’t think that heartfelt music, played by real people with real instruments and real emotions will ever cease to exist, because after all there is a spark of life in there, that will never grow cold (unlike within the fast-turning generation-change of computers). Especially “Der Pfarrer” (the priest) is a song that drags you along with that drawn-out emo-rhythm in one looping guitar-chord-change, screeching guitars and screamed double-vocals, only that here Sensual Love split up the song with various bridges and variations of the main guitarriff, that put the song over the top. In-between all these progressive (electronic) projects and intellectual, future-oriented bands Sensual Love remain one of my favourite bands, because of their sincerity and open honesty. This is what they do because they like it that way.