Streeturchin - Native

To be a synth pop band and not be influenced by Depeche Mode in some way is pretty hard and I understand fully that you become influenced by that group. They have laid ground for great parts of this genre and they will always be an icon. But to do a complete rip-off and try to copy their way to sing, to form the music and integrate guitars is totally tasteless. This is a try to do 'Songs of Faith and Devotion' once again, but it fails completely.

I have written "try" over and over again and that's exactly what this is, a try. When I listen to this album I start to think about that tape a friend played for me a couple of years ago, on that tape that was recorded a night when his brother was in the military and totally slammed sang old hits. I'm quite sure that it sounded great in his intoxicated head, but the sounds that came out didn't sound that impressive. This is quite the same thing. Further more the singer have a pretty distinct French accent and it's really hard sometimes to hear wither or not he sings in English.

Even though it's not that awfully terrible, I think the band should lay more ambition to find their own sound that they really like and not try to copy albums that already have been made, and made much better.

This review was written 2004 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2004