L’AME IMMORTELLE
WENN DER LETZTE SCHATTEN FÄLLT
DOUBLE ALBUM TRINITY RELEASE: OCTOBER 30, 1999 REVIEW: NOVEMBER 24, 1999


Austrians Thomas Rainer and Hannes Medwenitsch formed L'ame Immortelle in 1996. The former came from a black metal background, while Hannes was dabbling with synthpop. Soon they found Sonja Kraushofer, who played the piano and took singing lessons, and they gave her the microphone.
This history explains their sound, characteristically schizophrenic for what is termed "dark wave" in the German speaking world. One track might be drowned in distorted vocals and fast beats, fit for the dance floors, murky goth clubs, while tracks like "Another Day", with Sonja singing at the piano, are better suited for the Eurovision Song Contest.
In all it's diversity, the music of L'ame Immortele is disturbingly predictable. After a couple of songs of "two verses, then a chorus, two more verses, then the chorus a couple of times" you know exactly how the next song is going to sound. The English lyrics are terrible, and significantly the few decent songs, like "Gefallen" are written in German.
The second record is more straightforward electronic body music, and with mixing help from Bruno Kramm of Das Ich among others, it's a little bit more dynamic. Still, this beautifully packaged album doesn't contain any music to match the packaging.

MATTIAS HUSS