Artist: Malaise 
   Title: Hypnotized By forgotten Lies
   Label: Ultrachrome Records

Malaise have gone through a fair number of band member changes since their humble beginnings as a one man project of Martin Danielsson back in 1989.  Malaise still has Danielsson at the helm of the band, with help from Fredrik Leijstrom who joined the band in 1998, has been through the many band member changes since then.  This release features guest musicians Kim Blomkvist of Therion and Tobias Sidegard of Necrophobic.

This new EP from the band has some of the finest electro/industrial Goth sounds I heard since the Sisters of Mercy. 

Opening up in impressive style with ‘This Is For A Friend’ with its sombre keyboard start, it builds into a bass ridden gothic frenzy with the guitars bringing up the rear guard action to great effect.

From this point on I was hooked and wanted more, and more is what you get ‘In Your Dreams’ is full of haunting melody and the vocals are right out of the Sisters of Mercy’s top draw.

My favourite track on this all too short release is ‘No Confusion’, which takes the dark art to new heights with some outstanding vocals once more and some sublime guitar riffs.

This take a gentler turn with ‘Little Girl Of Mine’ a much more industrial track that relies heavily on keyboards and heavy bass lines, and the additional haunting vocals of Klara Norling make this an interesting track that you will either hate or love, for me it’s the latter.

The final track ‘Paradox’ is true electro funk goth with its gruff vocals and sweeping keyboards and tinny guitars and brings to close a very impressive return for the band.  Let's hope a full length album is in the pipeline.

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