ALT-G - Propaganda

I used to love the Old School genre back in the days with its roughness and lyrics of disappointment and hatred towards the society. Nowadays though, making Old School seems to be something everyone does. All citizens go to work, pay their taxes and make some amateur Old School for the funzies. Even though ALT-G from Chile is not in the forefront of the exploitation of the genre, in my mind, they are a part of it.

My problem with the album 'Propaganda' is that that it's molded in the standardized European Old School model. I was hoping for some fresh blood into the genre when the Old School travels the world, bringing in new cultures and ways to form it. Instead, it seems like following the German/Belgian standard is the only way and it disappoint me. I feel like I have heard this album being released thousands of times before from as many different artists.

This album contains 8 tracks and 3 remixes and from there, there are only a few tracks worth mentioning. "Civil Disorder" feels varied and has a nice flow to it, and it somewhat differs from the rest in beat and form. Also, "Mehr Mut / Elektronische Kraft" featuring New Fabrik is worth a notice as well, I like the quite 8-bit feeling they've somewhat integrated into the musical structure. Say Just Words' remix of "Beer, Distortion and EBM" is also putting an interesting approach to the original track by removing the music completely, only using the original vocals. Otherwise, you can expect nothing more than the same old beat to the same old sounds together with same old style of vocals.

But it does not get so much more fun than that. This genre need something new and fresh, and I need something new and fresh. Otherwise it might be time to kill off the Old School genre for a while and hope for a strong renascence in ten or so from now. Feb 17 2012