XCEPT ONE

For those looking for something like Departure From The Northern Wasteland, this is clearly not the place to go. Recorded in Los Angeles, very different from his 70s' acts, Xcept One announces Hoenig's future interests in movie, TV serie and video game soundtracks. However, despite some good moments and great keyboardist collaborations, the album features mainly rather average electronic music with very dated 80s' synthetizers.

The record opens with the title track, which starts good, but become quickly repetitive and uninspired. Bones on the Beach is one of two worthy passages here, with its mysterious atmosphere, its pulsing keyboard and its catchy melody, in the vein of Tangerine Dream's Underwater Sunlight's songs. The calm comes back with the small ambient piece Forgotten Thoughs, which is not bad, but not good either, in fact not very original for the late 80s. The next track, Scatter part I, is the most dated, repetitive and irritating of the disc. The minimalist composer Harold Budd participated to the composition of Spectral Gong. The result is a quite relaxing tune. Again, anjoyable, but not terribly new. The album concludes with its other worthy moment, Scatter Part II, undoubtly better than Part I. This fun theme could have well been used for a video game.

With Xcept One, Michael Hoenig delivers an album containing hardly half good and half bad electronic songs. Better go with Departure From The Northern Wasteland, far more enchanting and far less dated... 2,5 stars