YELWORC TRINITY ALBUM BAAL, METROPOLIS RELEASE: MARCH 9, 2004 REVIEW: APRIL 7, 2004

Ten years have passed since Yelworc released a new album. And in those ten years, much has changed. Pop music has infiltrated the once impenetrable fortress of dark electronic artists. Chart placements are now mentioned when acts such as Skinny Puppy, Front 242 or even Front Line Assembly are written about.
The turmoil surrounding Yelworc’s untimely demise is an ugly one. Dominic van Reich and Peter Devin descended into a conflict the likes of which had not been seen since Andrew Eldritch reclaimed the name Sisterhood from a disgruntled Wayne Hussey . Ultimately, Devin won the exclusive rights to the Yelworc name. Upon releasing their last album “Brainstorming”, a double compilation disc of unreleased works was issued in 1995 as a holdover for the fans. With the collapse of Celtic Circle Productions in 1997, Yelworc’s future appeared over.
In the ensuing years of silence, rumours began to arise that Peter Devin was indeed writing new tracks under the Yelworc moniker. Your reviewer managed to hear some of these tracks on a rough cassette in 1999; the album title was still “Trinity”. The production was poor but the ideas shined through. Add to this that the ground Yelworc broke was now being shamelessly exploited by acts such as Hocico, along with a host of others. It was quite easy to see that there was indeed still a place in the world for Yelworc.
Now, in 2004, the end result of all this toil and effort has been released to a grateful public. This album is a breath of fresh air, a warlike opus against mediocrity. The fact that is has been lovingly re-mastered by Dennis Ostermann (In Strict Confidence), elevates it even further into the stratosphere. Van Reich’s absence will undoubtedly cause much anger to some of the fans, but this is an unrealistic hope. There can be no going back to the way it was. In any case, his lack of involvement does not harm “Trinity”. This album is not a club killer, rather it is a collection of the past decade which shows the Yelworc sound evolving away from the earlier EBMish approach and into an amazingly complex, and yes, extremely dark vision of apocalyptic tone. Surely, there can be no question that Yelworc sound just as visceral and vital as they did in the days of yore.

PETER MARKS