GREAT OPPOSITIONS OF MARS

My favourite album in the huge Senmuth's discography is currently "Planetary Dust". So from the cover art and the title I was hoping to find a similar mixture of space rock, progressive electronic and ambient (sounds a bit Tangerine Dream, isn't it?) of that album.

The opening track starts with a couple of minutes of this kind then falls into a good but usual Senmuth track.

"Frame 35A76" has a chaotic but promising start but after few seconds we are in the industrial metal of the first albums. Not a bad thing, even with the randomic changes of pitch that I quite dislike.

"Channels of Mars" has an unusual slow tempo that makes it interesting.

The following tracks since "Olympus Mons" have all the same characteristics: an electronic intro that goes immediately into the industrial metal stuff. An exception is "Look For A Planet, and partially "Sydonia" that seems to have received more composing effort.

"Flights Above Nereidum" reprises the spacey sounds of the opener. A goos track unfortunately very short.

The longest track, "3923 seconds on Mars" has exactly this duration. It's spacey enough but at the same time percussions and electroncis make it dark as usual. Not a masterpiece, but it's the most enjoyable thing that I have found on this album.

It's not all good, even if better than its predecessor. I would say 2.5 stars, but I'm not so indulgent to round it up to three.

One more thing: the downloadable verison contains one bonus track: "Orbit of the 4th Planet". A good one, but it doesn't add much to the rest.