WONDERS FROM THE GENETIC FACTORY

Let me tell you that YOU's debut Electric Day was amazing, to see that great electronic music can be made in 1979. Wonders from the Genetic Factory is their third album, from 1984, and it's clearly an uneven album. I am not surprised that this would have an '80s sound, it's 1984 after all, but I'm glad they didn't go overboard on drum machines or fell in love with the DX-7, but drum machines are used. "Axis" is a bit off-putting due to the 1980s upbeat nature, and the liberal use of that "orchestra hit" sound (that really got overused to death by the late '80s, I was so glad that use was pretty much over with after 1990). But there are some nice moments as well. "Isotopic Moments" is luckily better. "Europe Transfer" is without a doubt one of the better cuts on the album. What really surprises me is the presence of Mellotron, done really nicely (it was a Novatron, and the band removed the "Novatron" badge and found the Mellotron logo under it, which meant the Novatron was nothing more than a rebranded Mellotron, due to legal difficulties stemming back to 1976). "Sampling Dance" was clearly a big mistake. They were trying to be so trendy for the times with a bit of hip-hop influence (luckily without rapping). I could almost imagine seeing kids breakdancing to this (I grew up in the 1980s, and I remembered very well the breakdancing craze of the mid 1980s). What were they thinking? Luckily the lengthy "Yourovision" more than makes up for it, outdoing anything Tangerine Dream was doing by this point. It even features a little bit of Mellotron which really pleases me. This album has a couple of questionable moments, and is clearly not as consistent as Electric Day, it's still has a lot of worthwhile material, and for the most part, better than most other stuff I've heard from this time period.