Cryptic Romance - Remembrance

Artist: Cryptic Romance

Album: Remembrance

Label: Gothic World Records

Genre: electro goth

Release Date: June 15^th 2013

Cryptic Romance are an electro goth band from Prague. Remembrance is their first album. Cryptic Romance is mostly a one-man-band, with all music, vocals, lyrics, production and artwork by Vanson Sichelstein. The only addition from outside is the synthline in "V hlubinì èerného lesa" by Necrocock (Kaviar Kavalier, Masters Hammer, Necrocock, Night Vision) – although I must say I had never heard of Mr Necrocock.

Remembrance is classic electro goth, with a dash of dark synthpop. Most of the tracks invoke the 90s, and Blutengel's early days. I'm not sure if this is part of the 90s revival that we saw a few years ago, but it does have a lovely retro twist to it.

More than anything, Cryptic Romance have a distinct Czech twist to themselves. Most of the tracks have Czech titles, and even though part of the lyrics are in English, Vanson Sichelstein has a bit of an exotic accent that gives Remembrance it's own flavor.

Overall, though, Cryptic Romance seems to be following too much of a recipe for standard electro goth. Besides the local Czech flavor on Remembrance, there is not so much special on the album. The choice of chords and beats works fine, that's not the problem, but the end result is a little bland.

One of the highlights on Remembrance is “Moondance”, a track on which I first thought “Hmm, this is interesting”, instead of “well, I've heard this before.” This track shows there is more potential in Cryptic Romance, but not all of it is budding yet.

To conclude: Remembrance by Cryptic Romance is an electro goth album that invokes the 90s. It's OK material, but it just doesn't have moments of brilliance.

You can listen to some work of Cryptic Romance on Reverb Nation.