Arctic Sunrise – A Smarter Enemy

Releasedate: 03-07-2015; Label: Echozone
By: Sabine van Gameren

Arctic Sunrise is a German formation existing out of Torsten Verlinden and Steve Baltes. The band says to be inspired by Ultravox and Depeche Mode and create now their own synth songs. They now release a full length album called “A Smarter Enemy” via Echozone.

The songs in the album are all catchy and easy to listen to. They have a gentle approach to the listener, being a bit timid at first rather than coming straight in the face. Here and there you may tend to ask a bit more of a wild side from them. The scratchmarks on the back won’t appear yet with what’s given now.
The guys are more aiming for a dreamy side, sometimes a bit romantic on its darkest perhaps. Yet, what’s missing is a bit of variation in the songs. It seems like they are all made with the same template in mind, which becomes a bit boring after a while. The songs are telling a story all by themselves, but musically it all comes back to the same principle. And then an album with eleven tracks becomes a bit long.

Arctic Sunrise shows that they have a good feeling of what they want to make, but perhaps forgot to listen to all the tracks in a row, seeing that a bit less subtle difference in the songs would made the whole release a bit more exciting. When they keep this in mind next time, they may be up for a killer release.

Line up:
Torsten Verlinden – Vocals
Steve Baltes – Synths

Tracklist: 01. Twilight 02. Beautiful Sunday 03. Real Life 04. Violet 05. Shellshock 06. Nothing More 07. Somebody Says 08. 200 Souls 09. A Smarter Enemy 10. Dumb 11. Hold On

Links:
Arctic Sunrise Facebook