Artist : Mt.Sims
Album : "Happily ever after...again "
Musical style: Post-Punk/Death-Rock of the new millenium
country : U.S.A/BERLIN
Note : 93,5/100
In the musical Cold-Wave/Post-Punk sphere of influence today too often tarnished, it is rare to find an album which really shakes you guts & brings fresh blood to the genre.
Matt Sims nevertheless managed with "Happily Ever After... Again", his fourth opus, to produce a record which should haunt you for a long time.
Of a chrysalis, Mount Sims, previously solo entity, was transformed into butterfly,moving from L.A to Berlin.
Matt Sims is a member of rare artists who succeeds to develop his sound on every album; Remember of Ultrasex (his first album) and its unstoppable original electro-pop hits like "Hate Fuck "; of Wild Light (second brilliant opus) in a more darker electro-cold-wave sound or his third album "Happily Ever After" and its universe orientated in the Batcave/Post-Punk area.
This new album begins where the last one left off, asking the questions "why am i here", and "how can i transcend myself".
Link of past towards the future, we thus find 3 titles of the previous opus : ‘The Bitten Bite Back’ re-position of the Death-Rock's sound like Christian Death & Bauhaus to a sweaty dancefloor whilst "Grave" ,a rolling pitch of sinister snares and melancholy omens with its purring & intoxicating bass lines, is nearly perfect for five exact minutes; when post-punk meats dark wave disco beats : "Love's Revenge" appears.
One track from the previous "Grave" EP "Unwound" is also here : a true synthetic masterpiece , darker than black ,very addictive.
The sound decorum is planted, will be linked while hits of a pale beauty which will restore his letters of nobility in the great moments of the movement of the beginning of the 80's but with a modern sound, far from the " crappy gothic body buildings mainstream " of the moment.Concerning the new compositions, Matt demonstrates one more time his excellence in the musical eclecticism ;
The icy pre-batcave's attacks of "Disappearing Act","In Exile" ,"New Authority Volunteers", "Candy Coated"or "Fall Back" kicks ass with deep,smart lyrics & a style of highly varied singing.
The post-modern-apocalyptic folk of "A Simple View" or the sublime,catchy and brilliantly dark "Fragile Breaks Fragile" will bewitch you for sure.
To note also the presence of stabbing guitars in the Siouxsie & the Banshees'style : "Hellbent" and the excellent haunted melancholic synthetic track "Shattering Of Crystal" with his typical cold-wave bass ;the perfection is near...
You will have understood it : this new album is just strong,profound and timeless.
Ultimate vestige of a musical current which sees itself here resuscitated with an eloquence, an originality and a freshness that we had not listened any more for ages.
Mt. Sims is the sacred guardian of the ice-cold and melancholic sound of the beginning of the 80's for the future decades.
To discover urgently : This record should be paid off by the Social Security !
JIM NO1R