The Vanishing - Sixteens - split - 12

Labels: GSL
Review by: Chris Bress

I put this on the other day after I had been listening to an old Polygon Window 12″, I was a bit dazed and I instantly thought I was still listening to Aphex. The Vanishing side is well electro, it is still like the same band that did that very good record a while back but it is just a little wankier. Whereas the LP was really good goth punk rock this 12″ is pretty electro-clash but with a crazy woman singing over it (kind of like the lady from Le Tigre and Bikini Kill but with a lot of echoes and more warbling). It’s a pretty boring track. The second is a bit better, it sounds kind of like a more metal Joy Division. But it doesn’t make up for the average first track and they are no way as good as Subtonix were (on this record anyway).

For some reason I was really looking forward to the Sixteens side. I was imagining some great 45 Grave style punk band, full of brutality and totally nothing like AFI. It is pretty average, more of the same though, maybe a little better (and less dancey) than the Vanishing side. At times the singer sounds like her from The Knife but over semi-Fields of the Nephilim goth rock. The first track has some really good guitar work on it which brings great soundtracks like Near Dark and Lost Boys to mind.