Vogon Poetry follow up their excellent album "The Prefect Stories" with a remix album called "The Dented Stories". It features remixes of tracks that featured on "The Prefect Stories" and includes remixes by the likes of Johan Baeckstrom (Daily Planet), Glenn Main, Vanguard, People Theatre.
First up is the Oren Amram Club Mix of "Real Player One" and it is a cracker, full of energy which is what you want from a club mix, a very impressive start. Next we have the Glenn Main Remix of "Never Too Late", a beautiful remix, the vocals are heartfelt and I love the piano on the track, a punchy rhythm gives the track energy, a top class track and remix. "Spit It Out" the Keri Kohara Remix is another remix for clubland that delivers with it's powerful drums, a track the younger generation will love and we love to. Blipblop's remix of "Possibilities" is an interesting track, mixing old style lo-fi synths with new synth sounds, some brilliant melodic parts on this remix, which make this another excellent track, a superb vocal on this track too.
We have been massively impressed with the work of Johan Baeckstrom, his recent solo album "Like Before" is a must if you like synthpop! So how does he fair on remixing "Moments", he doesn't disppoint, absolutely brilliant remix, full of synthpop elements that John is known for (think yazoo!), the best remix in this collection. Autodafeh's remix of "Hyperspace Bypass" is given another synthpop makeover, flawless, very catchy, love it! Obsession Of Time's remix of "The Great Big Nothing" is well constructed, it's moody and atmospheric, we liked this remix so much we did some research on Obsession Of Time and we liked what we heared, so much so, we will be featuring tracks from their new EP as well as tracks from this album on this months i-Select Show.
The next remix is "Afraid" by Argh, again beautiful synths and piano, this is another impressive remix. "Virtues" is next which has been remixed by Vanguard, a band we are familiar with and have featured many times on our shows. Some heavy synths on this remix, which gives it a much darker feel, then for the chorus it develops more of a "Synthpop" feel and has more of a pop feel to it, interesting how they have fused the 2 contrasting sound elements and they have done a really good job on this remix. We have really enjoyed remixes by People Theatre over the years and were delighted they had contributed to this album. They have remixed "Ready Player One", all the usual sound elements associated with People Theatre are evident here, punchy bass-line and strong synth leads, another excellent remix. Also included on this album is the demo version of "Never Too Late", a great idea, as it gives you the chance to see how the song has developed, as a demo this is quite an impressive version, there's a lot going on and it actually sounds quite powerful even at this early stage.
The second remix of "Spit It Out" is by Department M25, it has a very "Ultravox" sounding piano and bass-line which we love, nice haunting pads as well which adds to the atmosphere of the track, an outstanding remix. ""Possibilities" the 2nd Happiest Remix is very much driven by it's rhythm section and bass-line with piano sections, another remix we liked. "Moments" is such a brilliant track and the remix by Modiga Agenter Remix doesn't disappoint, strong rhythm elements and throbbing bass-line with a choir pad that is to die for, it's a very uplifting track that once again has been brilliantly remixed.
The second remix of "Hyperspace Bypass" is by Bitflipp and sounds like a modern day dance record, which is no bad thing, it's not as strong as other remixes on the album bud does show great remix skills as it varies quite a lot from the original version. 56 Degrees North have remixed "The Great Big Nothing" and it shows glimpses of a Gary Numan and Depeche Mode influence, quite heavy sounding, in fact it's quite a departure from the rest of the remixes on the album but is very interesting to listen to. There is definitely a "Kraftwerk" vibe in the Kretz remix of "Safe", which has another very strong bass-line interspersed with clever melodic parts, quite a moody offering this one, another impressive job done remixing this track.
The album closes with the Me The Tiger Remix of "Virtues", starts off pretty low key then wallop crashing guitars through the chorus, totally unexpected, credit where credit is due they have certainly taken this song in a totally different direction but for me is probably the one weak remix on the album.
What can we say, the remixers here have shown first and foremost how good the songs are and have done Vogon Poetry proud with this selection of remixes, it is definitely an album to proudly put alongside "The Prefect Stories" album..........9/10
The album is released on March 4th and is available as a Digital Download Bundled with "The Prefect Stories" CD (at a special price) as well as a Digital Download in it's own right from Bandcamp:
https://vogonpoetrymusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-dented-stories
