Assemblage 23 – Compass

Track listing:

1. Smoke
2. Collapse
3. Impermanence
4. How Can You Sleep
5. Spark
6. Leave This All Behind
7. Alive
8. Greed
9. Angels & Demons
10. The Cruelest Year

 

 

 

Limited Edition – Bonus CD Tracks:

1. Spark [Burikusu RMX]
2. Grind
3. Alone Again
4. Chosen
5. Greed [KMFDM RMX]

This album was released around October 2009, but my mind was on other things as I was in the thick of immigration stuff and I have only just become aware of it, this morning, while I was trawling through Spotify to see what ‘Futurepop’ albums I had missed towards the end of 2009.

I must confess to preferring Tom Shear’s darker sounding releases, however, over several listens to the album is most definitely growing on me. I definitely hear a heavy ‘old school’ Depeche Mode influence on several tracks off this album, a band who Tom Shear readily admits to be being influenced by. I suspect there are also a number of Depeche Mode fans out there who wish they were still making albums that sound like this. Actually, the synthesizer sounds on this album are very strong indeed  (I could see a number of Tanz-Metal bands getting rather envious of the ‘patches’) while Shear’s rich vocal lines rest perfectly in the mix. 

Reviewed at:

Softsynth – http://softsynth.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/review-assemblage-23-compass/

Reflections Of Darkness – http://www.reflectionsofdarkness.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5975&Itemid=44

Release Magazine – http://www.releasemagazine.net/Onrecord/orassemblage23compass.htm

Regenmag – http://www.regenmag.com/Reviews-1979-Assemblage-23-Compass.html

Musicnonstop – http://www.musicnonstop.co.uk/product-view.php?productid=22587