Felix Marc - Parallel Worlds

Admittedly, and to my eternal chagrin, I hadn't heard of Felix Marc until last year - two years after the sensational "Pathways" album. Ironically, my discovery of Felix has to be credited to Last.Fm's "Recommended Radio" service - to this day, the only act I discovered exclusively through this service.

In the three years since, it's quite obvious that Felix Marc has an inherent ability to compose Synthpop of the very highest degree - the opening track on this release - "Repair" is as catchy as anything by some of my favourite acts, and I just KNOW this album is going to be a cracker.

"Moscow Paris", like the title indicates, will be popular all across the globe, the Seven minute "Collector" is a beauty, reminscent of harder Synth acts like Dupont, but somehow able to retain the original charm, and through and through, this is just a damned well-written opus.

The album is laden with catchy synths, the occasional arp, and a myriad of up-beat, danceable songs for the summer. Tripled with lyrics that have meaning, don't just rhyme for the sake of it, and have that 90's feel-good factor, we have a template for greatness here. Especially when at times, the lyrical and vocal style reminds me of the work of Edge of Dawn - my absolute cream of the crop.

Singling out some tracks, "Life is Porn", "Ghost", and the closing, eponymous title track are the ones I remember the easiest.

Parallel Worlds is not just a success, but an appropriate title - I think listeners of Synthpop, Futurepop and EBM alike will all agree, in parallel, that Felix Marc is more and more relevant as time goes on, and so he should be - he's been in the music scene since 1994! Jul 30 2011