CHOOCHOO-
SHOESHOOT
Choose Your Own Romance
(Kythibong)

COFFINS
Buried Death
(20 Buck Spin)

ASRA
The Way of All Flesh
(Black Box)

ONE STARVING DAY
Broken Wings Lead Arms to
the Sun
(KNBVI)

OBSKURIA
Discovery of Obskuria
(World in Sound)

KLIMT 1918
Just in Case We'll Never Meet

Again 

(Prophecy)

HEAVY HEAVY 
LOW LOW
Turtle Nipples and the Toxic
Shock 

(Ferret)

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Some sounds are just way out of character. Especially for yours truly.  I know, these are days of drunken eclecticism for all labels and zines, so who’s to say what is out of character, but I just wasn’t expecting this album to be this light and pop.  The reasoning for my expectations was that if Klimt 1918 were not to be a metal act, at least they’ll be somewhat dark. Perhaps a little gothic with moments of guitar heavy hard rock. The cover artwork was intriguing and considering that they are signed to German label Prophecy and that they were formed in 1999 after brothers Marco and Paolo Soellner departed a death metal band, I think the odds were pretty high. Apparently, the shift in musical genres was influenced by their discovery of bands like The Cure and Joy Division, so there we go again.

Sure, there is definitely good work in show here, especially the musical layering and the delicate and transparent traces of post punk and shoegaze, but these are never prevalent enough to bath Klimt 1918 with the type of mystic that would grant them inclusion in the gothic or shoegaze records bin. More so, the voice of Marco Soellner is quite ambiguous; basically you never know if the singer is a guy or a girl or a hermaphrodite. Not that it matters, after all Soellner can carry a tune, but his melodies are rather shiny and at their most damaged, barely melancholic. There are a few solid tunes here, like “Just an Interlude in Your Life”, where the band occasionally goes for a dense guitar sound, and the melodies are quite memorable.  But for the most part Just in Case We’ll Never Meet Again is rather both; soft and bland. 

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