Savage Grounds lands on She Lost Kontrol with a 7 track EP, Hidden by the Night. For the first time, the voice of Kleio Thomaïdes joins Savage Grounds members Florin Büchel (Synthesizers) and Daniele Cosmo (Drum Machines). The result is an attractive, intense record with some nuances that will surely make the old nostalgics of Krilian Camera and Simona Buja’s voice squeak their eyes.
The record reminds us the heartbeat of Italian darkwave, the angularity of German basements, the youthful despair of French coldwave. But it’s more than that because it’s a very personal kind of darkness.The exasperated atmospheres seem to resonate on both sides of the record, with the due differences between the darker-wave elements of the record and the more proto-ebm ones.
All these songs are almost ‘goth love protest songs’: they all have the gloominess of the pre-disappointed, of the already-disgusted, of the unrelentlessly bleak against a freezing, sparse, ethereal electronic landscape. The voice by Kleio Thomaïdes is so fascinating because it’s a wise, opaque, adult female voice which pave the way for a sting of sexy verbs spoken and screamed by a mysterious female voice, discordant EBM-influenced melodies and the occasional screech.
Dark as hell, coldly passionate, Hidden by the Night really is a poignant journey of pain and love. If you like the sound of that kind of thing, you’re going to love it madly.
