L’0nde N0IRe – TECH N0IR (Album Review)

L’0nde N0IRe is back with his trademark short songs on his album, TECH NOIR. Released on May 26, the concept album has 12 tracks. The artist described the album as a ‘dark electronic concept album’​ that blends trance and techno, among other elements.

TECH NOIR​, the artist says, is built ‘Built around repetitive one-word mantras’, thematically serving as ‘a symbolic journey through existence, addiction, obsession, psychological fragmentation, suffering and death’.

‘Existence’ opens the album. It’s glitchy but light opening is unsettling. ‘Awareness’ is the first chant we hear from the female singer, that word followed by ‘consciousness’, and so forth, with the singer raising her voice and becoming frantic as the song progresses. In a word, the vocalisation also blends into shouting rallies. It’s an unsettling song backed by relentless kicks. It does speak to the ‘psychological fragmentation’ as called by the artist. 

Although ‘Addiction’ starts with low-styled chants by a male singer, we also get a female singer with frantic shouting. If the album started on an unsettling note, this track follows suit, but at this stage the listener knows what world they’re in. This doesn’t make the album less unsettling, but it at least puts a smile on one’s face since this unsettling feeling is by design. The shouting also speaks to the singer’s audacity. 

‘Obsession’ follows. The singer is still female and she starts with the chant, ‘obsession’. This and the previous song could have been one song since ‘addiction’ and ‘obsession’ not only rhyme but are also close in meaning. 

‘Disorder’ follows. At this stage, the listener is either happy with the familiar sound or has some concerns about the formulaic nature of TECH NOIR. We still get a female singer and one-word chants as well as shouty singing, although not as much as in the previous songs. What’s also fresh in this song is that L’0nde N0IRe lets some passages play without vocals.

Next up is ‘Denial’, a very danceable track if you reveal the chants. The sound feels techno to me, with some tiny glitches present. The track follows the album formula when it comes to lyrics and instrumentation.

‘Therapy!’ comes after. Initially, vocalisation takes center stage, with instrumentation playing very low; but some energetic kicks soon come in. These are hard and relentless kicks; kicks that are felt by the body. Another danceable track.

A track with an ominous name (‘Pain’) follows. As with ‘Addiction’, the song starts with the chanting vocals of a male singer, a female then following. The kicks here, if you can call them that, are almost weightless, and the instrumentation sounds more like a helicopter on the move. 

Following this is ‘Traum​a’, another track with the words ‘fragmentation’ and ‘memory’ in the song. A female does the vocals once more, shouting and chants being the order of the day. 

‘Fear’ then comes in, a female singer behind the vocals once more. Surely, at this stage, the reader of the review will have realized how the album is trapped or follows the formula strictly; the last three songs in the album, ‘Collapse’, ‘Death’, and the title track, basically running on the same script, although the instrumentals vary.

SCORE/Good: A concern here is the album sounding formulaic. What’s more, in an album said to be filled with one-word mantras, you expect the album to have sparse lyrics, but I found the technique of piling one word after the other distracting from the instrumentation. But thinking of it, this cancellation, if you will, of the instrumentation speaks to the fragmentary nature of the album, which I take it to be the artist’s intention. In that regard, the artist has fulfilled their desire.

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

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