review by: Roberto Martinelli

The fourth album by this deliciously curious German band that plays catatonically mellow, loungey music is very much in the same vein as the previous record, Sunset Mission (see reviews of Bohren's first three album in issue #4). The saxophone is still there, but it's held back in the mix. The minimal, almost dead drumming has come to life a little bit compared to before. A new element that has arisen is this omnipresent keyboard that provides washes of notes in the background. I'm not entirely happy with this keyboard, as it sounds a little cheesy and forced in a dark ambient sort of way.

With that criticism out of the way, the new Bohren is as brilliant and essential as all the ones that came before. Super trancy and laid back, listening to Bohren und der Club of Gore is like if your speakers were releasing something from another dimension that is able to alter the fabric of time, placing you in this comfortable and fascinatingly bizarre limbo of vagabond notes. Not as good as Bohren numbers two and three, though.