Track Listing: Et Moi, L'Ebloui, Gregoire L'Illuminateur, Paul A., Dimitri, Le Russe, Coeur Vegetal (Russe), Klaus, Line, L'Incroyable.

If you are into the dark folk of old, you will certainly appreciate this French trio. Their website says they are somewhere in between the Cure and the Legendary Pink Dots, and I have to say they do it rather well. Gritty, raw, sometimes tortured, but yet melodic sounding vocals are made even better when sung in French. The tracks span from a simple guitar, strings, and vocals, to my favorite track – “Le Russe” – which surrounds you in ethereal melodies so otherworldly it will swirl you all the way up to Vangelis and back.

For more information, check out their website or Myspace Page.

Track Listing: Born Into This, Citizens, Diamonds, Dirty Little Rockstar, Holy Mountain, I Assassin, Illuminated, Tiger In The Sun, Savages, Sound of Destruction, Stand Alone, War Pony Destroyer, I Assassin [Demo], Sound of Destruction [Demo], Savages [Extended].

I love The Cult more than I love my own mother, and that’s saying a heck of a lot. This was The Cult’s first album after a six year silence, and overall, it doesn’t disappoint. The first few tracks aren’t that impressive – in fact, they sound like what The Cult will probably sound like playing the geriatric circuit 20 years from now. However, turn your ears onto “Dirty little Rockstar” and you’ll be back to your devil fingerin’, crotch grabbin’ self in no time.

Or maybe I’m the only one that does that.

I can’t really speak poorly of the rest of the album – some tracks slightly weaker than others [“Tiger In The Sun”] but still pack the Cult power, crazy-ass lyrics, and guitar riffs we all know without being repetitive. A good, solid album that goes to show that they can still rock it out after all these years.

For more information, check out their website or Myspace Page.

Track Listing: The Vile ( Limbo Remix) - Angels on Acid, Blue Room V. 2002 (live) - Kirilian Camera, Shoot To Kill (7.62 Mix by Syndica_Z3r01), This Life (2008) - The Ludovico Technique, Stitched (Butterfly Remix By Biodrone) - Diverje, Rape Your God (Incal Mix by Implant) XMH, Circle The Sun - The Oedipus Complex, Winter Song - JasonAlacrity, Entzen - Life’s Decay, Machine Is Broken - Scarlet Slipping, Eden - Imprint, Dented Halos (angelic Mix) - Cylab, Undercurrent - Nuns of Telekenesis, The Sheltering Sky - Phantoms of the SS, Lullaby - Attrition, From A Lonely Place - The Hiroshima Project.

This is the perfect sampler of electronic music, spanning the gamut from the ethereal voices of Imprint to the floor punching pulses of Angels on Acid. It is hard to find artists that actually integrate their beats, loops, vocals, and samples instead of layering one on top of the other – and I think that the 7.62 Mix of C/A/T's “Shoot To Kill” demonstrates the former quite nicely. On the other end of the spectrum, “Dented Halos” is absolutely heavenly in its simplicity.

For more information, check out the Shinto Records website.

Track Listing: Underneath the Stars, Only One, Reasons Why, Freakshow, Sirensong, Real Snow White, Hungry Ghost, Switch, Perfect Boy, This. Here and Now., With You, Sleep When I’m Dead, Scream, It’s Over.

Admittedly, I have not really been a fan of The Cure since escaping the vapid wilderness of puberty so long ago. I do believe I still am clinging onto enough goth points that I can freely admit this in public. So, I really haven’t been paying much attention to them. With that being said, I cannot really determine if this is an actual good Cure album. It is either really enjoyable, or The Cure realized where they went horribly wrong (and why I stopped listening to them), found the bits and pieces of previous popular songs, threw them in a cage to mate, and put the hedonist offspring on an album.

I am detecting a bit of heavier guitar (for The Cure, that is) than usual, which is a slightly refreshing change. Overall, not too bad, and this Not Cure fan wouldn’t scramble to hit the stop button.

For more information, check out their website or Myspace Page.