Synthpop's Variety
Peter Steinle | Tulsa, OK | 11/22/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"When I bought this CD I had heard several Count to Infinity songs, but they were mainly from the singles I own. While I had heard and liked the album versions of "Immanence", "Space Age Love Song", and "Lily, The World Is Vile", I was very surprised at what the whole album, when listened to as a whole, was actually like.
The CD is very cohesive and yet well varied. One of the first things that should be noted, of course, is that this is a somewhat slow synthpop CD. The entire CD is somewhat "mellow" with the exception of "Edie Magick", and if you're only into faster paced, club-oriented synthpop, this is not the album for you and you'd probably be better off with the remix-laden singles. For instance, the first song on the CD following the intro, "Sunday Morning", is just the opposite of a club track, being extremely calming instead of energizing. While some tracks could be considered dance friendly, like the aforementioned "Immanence", "Edie Magick", "Popism", and arguably "Space Age Love Song", the album on the whole is not.
Whatever tempo the songs may be, they work together very well as a whole. The singer has a very smooth, soothing voice that was employed on several songs, namely the "Sunday Morning" pair and "Space Age Love Song". On a few songs his voice is fairly heavily distorted, but not overly so. On "China Blue" he goes a little higher, holds notes longer, and sounds much more like he's singing, departing from his usual low, soft, and sometimes almost spoken style.
The use of sound bites is fairly frequent but they don't detract from anything, and work well enough in the songs to actually give them quite a bit more character, notable instances are "Popism" and my favorite in "Immanence".
The "instrumentation" gives the music a lot of uniqueness and interest. On "Lily, The World Is Vile" the gentle, pulsing synths panning from ear to ear combine with the singer's almost hypnotic voice to create a real sense of dreams. On "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" there is a drum loop with a cymbal and a double kick bass drum which is a rarity in synthpop and serves to add a somewhat haunting, menacing tone. The song sounded almost gothic, and the tone was further propagated by the background vocals, piano, and the various instrument loops, among which I thought I heard were accordion, xylophone-like effects.
One really strange thing was that on "Undertow", during the chorus especially, there were some really discordant loops that sounded terrible together. It was just strange that that was there considering the very high overall musical and production quality (A Different Drum). "Undertow" is a good song aside from that flaw (check out the Icon of Coil remix on Synthpop Club Anthems Vol. 1).
I very much enjoyed this album, the individual songs and as a whole. I highly recommend this CD, this isn't one of those CDs where all the songs sound the same and you get sick of the monotony before the CD's even over, nonetheless, it's not going to be to the likings of everyone. It's almost impossible to make comparisons of Count to Infinity to other bands--my best attempt somewhere between a less emotional Cosmicity, a more synthpop oriented Massive Attack, and A Covenant of Thorns with less vocal range expressed, all over music more typical of trance or techno than synthpop. I know that's terrible, but it's the best I can think of...check out their free mp3s here on Amazon.com."
New Wave Comes Of Age!
Yolanda Dove | Philadelphia, PA | 02/26/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Hard to describe and even harder to catagorize, Count to Infinity has the pop of the bubblegum 80's radio play combined with the complexity of underground electroclash. It moves from fast dancable tunes to softer more experimental moments. Within the songs are statements about politics, social commentary and about the DJ culture as a whole. The only issue I have with this album is that the songs individually are very good but they don't seem to have a true theme together. Still worth the purchase if you are into disco-like New Wave and/or groups like the early 80's group Soft Cell."
This cd is so great! Trance and Synthpop in one....
Yolanda Dove | 12/30/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"There is a lot going on on this cd. It goes from mello and odd at times to four on the floor trance like synthpop. The Flock Of Seagulls cover of spaceage love song is delicious. Buy this and you'll not part with it."
Track Listings (16) - Disc #1