Metroland - Mind The Gap

Metroland's debut album 'Mind The Gap' is following in the footsteps of Kraftwerk and is a concept album about travelling, especially by the Metro and inner city travel.

The problem with following the footsteps of Kraftwerk is that you take a path that is quite narrow. If you release something within that genre, first off, you will get compared to Kraftwerk, that?s how it works. Secondly, it's hard to stand out, especially if you use the vocoder. Even though Metroland is much more true to Kraftwerk than the Swedish band System, which is slightly darker, the similarities are there, and I can't shake off the feeling that I?ve heard this so many times before and none of it sounds fresh and new. For me, it simply ends up being background noise; I even tried to do nothing part from listening to the music, but even then, my mind wandered off.

Saying that, the album still has some credit and beautiful melodies. "Enjoying The View" is a beautiful start of the album, "Harry Beck" (created the London Underground Tube), "Travelling", "T.F.L" might also be worth checking out. The strong Kraftwerk hint in "It?s More Fun To Commute" (It's more fun to compute) is quite a joy as well.

All and all, Metroland is not quite for me, Even though I?ve been a huge fan of Kraftwerk (who isn't?) since I heard them for the first time 16 years ago. Still, they had something that made their melodies and tunes magical, for me, Metroland does not quite reach there. Oct 04 2012