Black Line – Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities

Black Line Treason Sedition And Subversive Activities

Album facts

Release: May 25th, 2017
Label: Not on label
Genre: , , , , ,
Discogs: Link

Who is 'Black Line'?

The album 'Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities' by the band pro­ject 'Black Line' is voiced by none oth­er than 'Douglas J. McCarthy'. The list of par­ti­cip­at­ing artists aren't unknown in the scene.

Partly respons­ible for the sound on 'Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities' are Bon Harris (Nitzer Ebb), Christian Eigner (Depeche Mode), Paul Barker (Ministry), Jon Bates (Big Black Delta), Mark Walk (Skinny Puppy) and many more. So 'Black Line' is a col­lab­or­a­tion that is second to none. It's always excit­ing when great artists from the scene work togeth­er, cre­at­ing a fusion of dif­fer­ent genres. In this review you will find out wheth­er the genet­ic chil­dren of these col­lab­or­a­tions can suc­cess­fully fight the music­al survival.

An awesome start

The open­er 'Sedition' is an acous­tic hand­granate. The track is crammed with geni­us elec­tron­ic samples. With the begin­ning of ‘Douglas J. McCarthy’ voice, the song sounds warm and com­fort­able. The chor­us stands out strongly from the rest of the song and reaches almost the state of weightlessness.

The second num­ber 'Losing You' has a lot of poten­tial. Here, great samples are used and the elec­tric gui­tar at the end sounds excit­ing. However, I can not free myself from the impres­sion that the song sounds some­how unfin­ished. Especially in the middle part, I tend to skip the song, because there is some monotony.

A patchwork album that harmonizes

'Keep Digging' is a great mid-tempo Electrorock song. Ideally, the track is suit­able for the first listen, because the song is very catchy and almost radio-com­pat­ible. Also the instru­ment­a­tion proves the cour­age to the cre­at­ive, sound change, which should be men­tioned in this album pro­ject praise­worthy. Here you can very nicely hear the influ­ences of the artists involved.

In the dir­ec­tion of clas­sic Synth Pop, with almost 'Kraftwerk' like samples, the song 'No Crime' flies on a wave accom­pan­ied by black clouds. Here the tempo is also attrac­ted, so that we move almost in the up-tempo range. 'No Crime' also has the driv­ing force to ensure move­ment on the dance floor.

Soundscapes from the future

The song 'Snap' is very exper­i­ment­al. Unusually sound­ing beats and noises meet an almost irreg­u­lar song com­pos­i­tion. At least the bound­ar­ies between verse, chor­us and bridge are blurred. Despite the strange­ness, the song sounds super excit­ing and cap­tiv­ates the listen­er to the sound waves.

At 'Shut It Down', we are back in the clas­sic gloomy music genre. Here is a hard and cold sound­ing track between Synth Pop and Darkwave. Furthermore oth­er dark music genres have trans­planted their genes as well. Parts of the song remind me of typ­ic­al pas­sages of 'Duran Duran' songs from the 80s.

An acoustic doomsday atmosphere

The song 'Can't Breathe' begins mech­an­ic­ally cold, which also cap­tures a rather oppress­ive atmo­sphere. Melancholic, the song drags itself with dif­fi­culty towards the end, but without being trivi­al. The oppos­ite is the case, you cling to the words of 'Douglas J. McCarthy' like that of a armaged­don proph­et. From the basic mood, the song comes very close to the last 'Depeche Mode' album 'Spirit'.

'Layers' sounds acous­tic­ally rel­at­ively lightly, but the mood is rather gloomy. The changes in the tempo, as well as the volume level, pro­duce a great dynam­ic. The song is anoth­er unique piece of the puzzle that makes the album sound so fant­ast­ic­ally var­ied.

A collaboration that is worth to buy?

The album 'Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities' is a moun­tain and val­ley ride. And even if the over­all res­ult doesn't look exactly suc­cess­ful, there are real treas­ures on it. So it's worth to give this album a chance.

We had our joy with 'Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities', which you can see from the fact that we rated the half of the album with 4 stars. For fans of 'Douglas J. McCarthy' the album is cer­tainly a must-have, every­one else should at least listen to before.

Track By Track Rating

Black Line Treason Sedition And Subversive Activities
Black Line – Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities
Sedition
Losing You
Keep Digging
No Crime Prelude
No Crime
Snap
Shut It Down
Can't Breathe
Big City
Layers Interlude
Layers
First Moment
The Last Moment
Changed (Venetian Snares Mix)
Recommend
Sedition
Keep Digging
No Crime
Weak
No Crime Prelude
Layers Interlude
First Moment
The Last Moment
3.2
Dichotomous

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Sedition
Losing You
Keep Digging
No Crime Prelude
No Crime
Snap
Shut It Down
Can't Breathe
Big City
Layers Interlude
Layers
First Moment
The Last Moment
Changed (Venetian Snares Mix)
Final Score