This German compilation is a beautiful reminder that while popular trends push forward, barren pulses and beep-boops will always have a place in the electro hipster deep inside that dark void you call a soul. This same electro hipster will be irritated by the album’s title, as none of these thirty-five tracks are remotely warm and calling them not so cold is a sad marketing ploy. Every track freezes you in a giant glacier, with cool synths, low beats, and spartan guitars. Homogeneity is the key: it might as well have been made by one person.

Unfortunately, many of these darkwave/post-industrial/minimalist/synthwave/electro couldn’t scramble together anything worth zhen Euro if their Leben davon abhinge. The first five tracks are total throwaways, with the opener by veterans Absolute Body Control being the worst. Repeating the line “Take a deep breath” until the listener starts pulling nose hairs to pass the time is not a good idea.

At Hante’s “Falling From Grace”, everything comes together. It’s a glorious funeral procession, one of those dirges that recalls the comforts of depression. There’s no way they could have plagiarized Faith-era Cure anymore. From there, the people start stealing liberally from all your cold wave faves: KaS Product and Asylum Party get ravaged for ideas in the most glorious of ways. There’s not a single new concept the entire runtime. It’s minimalism’s equivalent to potato chips, delightful enough to make you reach for another handful even though it’s all empty calories.

So let that inner electro hipster get fat, obese even, off this greasy, salty trash. With awful electro-house garbage shitting on everybody’s ears nowadays, he really deserves it. Buy it here.

B