Die Krupps is a formidable industrial metal band. "Odyssey Of The Mind" sounds more like metal than industrial, none of that dark, ominous sound around here. "The Last Flood" starts things off with a mid-paced, intense sound, complete with samples of all sorts (just musical and noise related, no movie tidbits on this album) that give an indication of what the rest of the album will be like. The guitar riffing is used quite nicely throughout the album, it provides a very metal feel to the album. Never lost is the intensity they achieve, with the help of the various pounding sounds. Also accompanying the melange is the inclusion of various sound effects (describing them would be too difficult) that help set the mood of the music. The title song "Odyssey Of The Mind" starts with a variety of those atmospheric samples and then goes into the more intense and complex verse state. The chorus introduces a very harmonic, whispery vocal style, as opposed to the raspy vocal style used throughout most of the rest of the album. The title song, so unusually, includes a guitar solo, something you don't expect to hear in industial recordings. This genre also seems to have an advantage over metal in respect to repetition, each song they simply change all the samples and it sounds very much different. Die Krupps do suffer in places from not actually having different song components, but simply having a few different samples. If you pay close enough attention some of the supporting "beat sounds" follow the same pattern in different songs. "Scent" is one of the best songs on the album. A different vocal style is adopted, one that is cleaner, and more harmonic in the chorus'. The song structure is still the same as all the others (a very standard metal style song structure), but the guitar is more vivid, and the samples are less overpowering. It's unfortunate that this song, like so many of the rest, doesn't actually finish, it just trails away as the volume is lowered. "Alive" is also one of the best songs on the album. An atmospheric, melodic endeavour, it goes a very different direction than the rest of the album. The vocals are all very clean, and a reasonable moderate low pitch as usual, picking up the subtleties of the interesting mix of samples and guitar that make this song sound "Alive". Die Krupps' "Odyssey Of The Mind" is a very good album, and should breathe some more life into the industrial side of metal.
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