Mergel Kratzer - Isotop

So here I am with the debut album of the Swedish dark electro duo Mergel Kratzer. It's been a couple of years now since we last heard something from this band, I believe it was 2006 when they released their CDM called 'Virus', but I'm here to write about ' Isotop' and nothing else. The CD is actually a mixed album with both new and old tracks (of course they have been remastered to match the newer tracks). So what can we expect from this album? I would say a lot actually.

You have a mix of fast and slow tracks with great melodies and variety in both drum patterns and synthesizers. On top of that you have both clean female vocals and harsh distorted male vocals. The album starts off with the track "Iso" which is an aggressive dystopian track which combines both female and male vocals into a nice mixture. This is followed by "Get a taste" which is a very melodic track that feels influenced by the 80's EBM, but only a little. This is also one of my favorite tracks along with "Prisoner" and "Satisfy". These tracks are more aggressive, but they still have that nice melodic touch to them.

I think 'Isotop' is a solid album but there are some things that need a bit of improvement. First off, the female vocals need a bit of polishing because they feel a bit raw. The last thing is that I feel something is missing in the older tracks, maybe a couple of atmospheric synthesizers would be needed to raise the tracks up a bit to match them with the newer ones. If you're looking for a great dark electro album that isn't from Germany, well, then you've found it here! Nov 04 2009