PRIDE AND FALL – Paragon MCD

Pride and Fall are one of the hottest and most talked about new bands in the EBM/Industrial scene. Coming out of nowhere, "Nephesh", their first long play, was an accomplished debut.
So, what of their newborn single release?… Come explore with me..

'Paragon' is a good dancefloor orientated tune. It encapsulates all the good and the bad of Pride and Fall as a band. It is catchy, good vocal lines, very well programmed, but somehow soulless. That was what I found with the "Nephesh" album. Good, sure. Very good in fact. But it lacked a certain something, the je ne c’est pas that turns a good band into a superior band. All the bits are there – four to the floor beats, melancholic vocals, catchy melody lines – it just doesn’t quite add up to the great song it should be. And here is why my gripes kick in.. Do we really need another VNV Nation? Because Pride and Fall try desperately to be VNV, sometimes with great aplomb and success.. My personal favourite on the album, 'Construct', is an awesome Instrumental of epic stature and scale, a true dancefloor killer that I have spun to great effect everywhere I have played, worthy of Ronan at his very finest…
The other gripe is that most of the tracks on the album and here on this single fade out at the end… Why? Can they not give us an ending? It does bug me. It makes the tracks non-DJ friendly, it makes us sound as though we couldn’t mix it into the next track so we had to fade it out… Not good.

2.Club version - ~ is virtually identical to the first. Just with an epic beginning and a few extra drums. An extended version rather than a Club remix.. I’d stick to the original if I were you.

3. Delusion – Long Version
A new track? If this is the direction that Pride and Fall are headed, I’m all for it! Much heavier than the usual fare from these guys. I like it!
Nice sampling and a thudding, thumping four four kick drum.. Vocals that Al Jourgensen himself would be proud of, good, dark stuff, if a little raw around the edges..

4. The Approach – (full version)
The first half of this is the intro to the album, it’s a fucking brilliant intro. I kid you not. Awesome stuff. But here we get the not so hot full version..

5. Paragon - :SITD: remix
I’ll make no qualms about the fact that I really love :SITD:. I really rate them as a band and I really rate them as remixers. They are top drawer hard dancefloor EBM meisters. However, for once, Tom and Carsten have let us down. Don’t get me wrong, if anyone else had done this remix I’d be singing their praises, it is after all a good remix with one eye fixed firmly on the dancefloor. But :SITD: have set their benchmark so high, that this sadly falls below their own excellent standards.

Pride and Fall are definitely a band to keep an eye on. Pretenders to the VNV crown they have a way to go yet. However with a few minor adjustments (endings to songs..please!) I reckon they will make it, and next time I write about them I’ll be raving about them!

Electromeda rating –JOY. Good, but not good enough...