FICTIONAL – Fiction

The “other” side-project of Gerrit Thomas has already produced one mega-hit. Hearing that song, you might get the picture about Fictional: diluted Funker Vogt moving at ½ a speed.
Honestly, I never liked ‘Blue Lights’ but I do respect its popularity. Song of such caliber cannot be found on “Fiction”. Far from it. Style still resembles products of Lager 2 studio, yet, with exception of just a couple of excellent musical pieces (covered by disastrous lyrics), it does not meet even the lowest standards of renowned Meister.
I am certain that it is just a sad incident, but ‘Burning Man’ is melodically a photocopy of ‘Sins’ from FV’s “Maschine Zeit”. Unfortunately, the rest of this album is not even that. We get flashes of musical virtuosity on ‘Dorian Gray’, ‘Hunting Machine’ and ‘Private Nightmare’, but this album has fourteen tracks, so percentage is far too low. Combining this record with Funker Vogt’s “Survivor”, lack of inspiration is evident in Gerrit Thomas’ recent output.
Kai Schmidt has been producing lyrics of war, catastrophe and mechanical future for FV for years. And they fit perfectly into the profile. With Fictional, he is completely lost in the realm of personal/lyrical themes. Add just a touch of sensible lyrics to Gerrit’s rolling music and you have a hit song. Not a single ‘libretto’ is even close to that goal. As I said before, there were a couple of possible gems, but potential has not been exploited, leaving us with a pretty much bleak edition. It will not serve as a merit to the people involved, including Jason Bainbridge.

Personally, I don’t see the reason for Fictional’s existence. Thomas/Schmidt duo is working flawlessly under the Funker Vogt flag. Not many bands, if any, can match them in ‘combat rock’ industrial music. Why experiments with synth-pop? It is sadly apparent that ‘Blue Lights’ was just a flicker of genius.