| MALAISE
A WORLD OF BROKEN IMAGES ALBUM MEMENTO MATERIA RELEASE: OCTOBER 4, 1999 REVIEW: OCTOBER 8, 1999 
Except for The Sisters of Mercy I've never really come to terms with goth. Especially the later generations of goth bands leave me totally cold. But for some reason I've always quite liked Malaise. Although their debut mini album "Secession" was a meeting of really lame electronics and an almost comical darkness, their first full length album, "Fifty-Two Ways", displayed a more mature band that had moved into a rockier territory. Despite its three years in the making, the new album " A World of Broken Images" sounds almost exactly the same. It's got the typical goth features, dark vocals and jangling guitars, but paired with some electronics and an edge that is more rock. And in the beginning I quite liked it. Malaise mastermind Martin Danielsson sings well and has a decent sense of songwriting, of which the opening track "Maybe I'm Dead" is a good example. In fact, all the songs here are well-crafted, well-performed and fairly good. The problem is that they all sound the same; they have about the same tempo, the choruses are similar and it's the same sense of sadness throughout. It gets to the point where it's simply annoying to keep listening. It's not often very enjoyable to listen to the same song eleven times in a row, is it? I still like Malaise. I just don't like listening to "A World of Broken Images" that much. KRISTOFFER NOHEDEN |
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