God Module - Empath 2.0

My first encounter with God Module was at the Wave Gotik Treffen back in 2003. I remember being quite impressed with dark electro sound and even though there were many bands within that particular genre at the time, I don't feel that the scene was not flooded like it is nowadays. I looked God Module up as soon as I got back to Sweden and 'Empath' was the album I got, and it was quite a favorite for me back then. I even wrote a review for it on my old zine Neurozine.com.

Nowadays, every second promo we get is either Harsh EBM or Dark Electro. Could a re-release of a ten year old album still be interesting? Has it aged with dignity and style or is just lying there, all wrinkled and with a distinct smell of piss.

This re-release has a completely new cover art, it has been re-mastered (it sounds great) and has one remade track called "Evolve(d)" where the original track is to be found on the 'Artificial 2.0' release (I'm unable to find it has been released before that? Perhaps any of our kind readers would be able to enlighten us in the comments below).

My favorite tracks from this release has always been "Telekinetic", "Curse", "Levitation", "Dear Dead Flesh", and "Ever After". However, with this version, I really need to add "Evolve(d)" to the bunch, it's a great tune and even though the heavy use of vocoders really feels it belongs more to the 'Artificial' era than the 'Empath' era, you never get the feeling that it is out of place, just a little bit different. And with that in mind, I think putting it in the end of the album was the right thing to do.

To be honest, I have actually just heard their debut album 'Artificial' and 'Empath' and at the time, 10 years ago, they were both very important albums for me. After that, I've spent all the time listening to albums for review, and since I never got anything from God Module, I haven't had the time to listen in to their new creations. Visiting it again after many years, is like seeing an old friend. However, it is an old friend you know everything about and even though you are happy to see each other again, there's not much new to be shared and what is important in life has already been said, over and over again.

Back in 2003, I gave this album a 9 out of 10. But then was then and now is now. I have a little bit different perspective nowadays and I've heard hundreds and hundreds of albums since then. However, it's still a good, if not great, album. Jan 29 2013