Pronoise - The Border Crossing

You know, when I played Pronoise's "The Border Crossing" as I hung out with my friends, I really was only expecting some background music to coincide with our shenanigans. We briefed through the CD that I received, and sort of mocked the first song's title, 'The Speed of Dark', and then threw it on the laptop and connected it to my sound system. As we continued doing what we do best, the music that Pronoise produced began to cease the moment, and slowly took over as we sat through the album. At the second song, one of my mates bellowed, "This is some fucking Nightrider shit right here," and even further into the album, he wound up saying, "Dude, this song would be awesome if it was played in Mortal Kombat." 

Needless to say, rather than just staying as background music, "The Border Crossing" fully evolved into the main event of the moment. Our ears perked, fingers and heads tapped and banged to the beat, and we wound up fully enjoying the album. That's the magic that's contained within Pronoise's latest album. 

Nacho Artax and Javi Andreu formed Pronoise back in 1996, with their debut album released just a year after. However, ever since then, the duo has been dead silent until they re-emerged in 2013. Surfacing a return, Pronoise reissued their debut album on Vinyl to a limited 320 copies. Having enough content to release yet another album, the two went to crowdsourcing to raise funds for "The Border Crossing". And, after a successful campaign that was pushed forwards and outwards by the two, "The Border Crossing" went from an idea to a reality. 

And, after close to two decades of silence, you would expect a damn good return. Luckily, Pronoise knows exactly what they're doing in regards to that, and have managed to not only establish themselves back onto the scene, but have created a very, very loving album that caters to multiple genres and fans. 

Starting off with basics, Artax is the man in charge when it comes to vocal duties. His dynamic vocals are able to vividly construct deep space images, and are also able to shout with anger and rage on other tracks. Where his voice completely shines would be on songs such as 'Rapture (They Won't Care', where meticulous effects placed on the vocals make them seamless and fit within the song very well, as well as in 'After The Rain', which definitely takes more queues from darkwave than anything. 

Combined with the talents of Andreu, the songs that come off this album can be absolutely jaw dropping. 'Dangerous Games' is perhaps my favorite song on the album, and it really does envoke a retro sort of sound. With a smooth beat and guitar work sewed within, a fun and funky track was really slammed out. 

There is not one song on this album that I do not like, and for that I commend Pronoise; I can nitpick albums here and there and find one song or another to not like in one respect or another, but these guys have really crafted a damn fine album. If you were unlucky enough to never hear of these two up until now, you might want to go listen to their music next. You might get a little infatuated with it as I have.