Militia - United
We Stand / Archive Collection 1996 - 1997 / Power! Propaganda! Production!
At first self produced CD-R "United We Stand" came out, a collection of Militia tunes from the last 20 years. Musically it's my favourite, but the way it's made, is a little poor. The paper labeled CD-R comes in a paper cover, lying in a card box with a logo clued on top and some printed cards. Another thing to critisize: There is no information which albums the tracks were taken from and in which year they were realised. But on "United We Stand" you can find on of the best Milita songs ever: "Mikael Bakunin". For me it's the prototypical Militia tune, starting with an electronic atmosphere and layered by slow drums like a starting machine, getting powerful more and more. Than a propagandistic voice is added, proclaiming anarchist statments, making you to raise your fist. Other track "Symbiosis" bringing a real factory athmosphere to your home, so that you nearly can smell the sweat of workers and feel the heat of the production hall. All songs on this record, besides "Necromonicon" are carried by a strong rhythm and directly make you move. Maybe scepticists call this "commercial", but it's not like Techno, it's man made and very energetic. Second release,
coming out on Neuropa Records, was "Archive Collection
1996 - 1997", a CD in a well designed fold out package. As the
name already tells it's another collection, bearing songs from three recordings:
"War against society", "Pain / Familientrauma" and
"Kingdom Of Our Lord / Maschinenzimmer". All three recordings
originally came out on German label Praxs Dr. Bearmann. Latest is the brand-new album "Power! Propaganda! Production!", also released on Neuropa Records. It starts wit "A New Statement", echoing some paragraphes of the anarchist statement in "Mikael Bakunin". The song itself is made in the typical Militia way: an electronic atmosphere combined with a strong rhythm. Two things have changed: The rhythm is more complex than before, additionally you have a "ethno" singer. The songs on the first half of this album follow this scheme, by that creating another, more "international" and human atmosphere. The second half, starting with the title song, is closer to "old" Milita, but with a stronger accentuation of the athmospheric part of the music. Militia-boss Frank has a lot of lyrics, he's intoning with emphasis and samples are used widely, so that the rhyhtmic part is not domnating that much. To sum it up: On this album Militia is following some new way without loosing the tracks of their past. If you like it or not, you have to decide on your own. For me it's a good decision, so the band avoids the danger of copying itself... By the way: If the last song "The Final Level" sounds familiar to you, it's not a mistke. It's using the core of "New European Order". Finally some word about another important thing: The packing of this CD is really nice. A solid read card box with fine artwork. Inside you find a booklet with great graphics of working class images and a A4-poster. This is a bit weird, I'd rather like it in the same propagandistic way as the booklet images. |
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