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AFM Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 22.05.2015
German band A Life Divided arrives with their fifth album Human, and it's my first listening experience with the band. The musical pitch is an amalgamation of several genres including melodic hard rock, melodic metal, synth or electronic rock, and maybe some industrial touches. Those latter two elements aren't of much interest to me, but seem to work for A Life Divided.
It's a catchy mixture, giving their sound an accessible, somewhat pop rock, even dance rock, feeling. The fundamental glue that holds everything together is the hard rock groove. Everything else is additional flavoring and spice. The largest spice is quirky synths and programming. But that's also fundamenal to the genre, but it gets old after a while. And don't expect too much in the way of guitar solos. They're pretty much verboten in this musical genre, being trumped by the synths and programming. I think I heard one at the end of Own Mistake. On the positive side, vocalist Jürgen Plangger has a solid, easy listening, melodic voice, making him understandable. Lyrically, the songs are surprisingly cogent, but seem to deal with drama of lost love relationship. Yawn. While not being my first choice in musical genres, A Life Divided is certainly quite skilled at crafting catchy melodic synth hard rock. If you like this style, something that carries on the tradition of bands like Depeche Mode, you'll probably like Human.
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While not being my first choice in musical genres, A Life Divided is certainly quite skilled at crafting catchy melodic synth hard rock.
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