The Delta – Minusman

Whoa, now where did the third Delta album come from?
It has been a fairly long time since I was last introduced to some of their tunes and then - bang! They have a new album out.
To inform the potential reader and/or listener right off, all ties with psy trance have been abbandoned. Basically, The Delta is still as macabre, hard and deviant as you them, but the music is more industrial inclined and relies more on heavy percussion and bass driven arrangements than the psychedelic trance sound of the past.
All tracks are really monotonous, quite simple structure wise, but it's in the details and the background where the real treats reside. The sound is gargantuan, the sub bass territory is packed with tidal waves of pure acoustic pleasure, the kicks are so crisp and banging, and they go hand in hand with constantly dominating, subwoofer shredding bass lines.
Hard to explain, I guess "Minusman" sounds along the lines of X-Dream's Thorazin, Peter's Hoover and Fall Out tracks from their "Irritant" album. But with less harmony and the slightest intent to serve some melody work is decapitated. The production vaults are larger than life though. Tracks like Warp sound like John Starlight's Blood Angels on amphetamines, while numbers like the title track, The Machines or Schmerzverstaerker roll along at a slower pace while maintaining a sharp, energetic edge and pure power despite of displaying a relatively limited amount of layers. Overall, Marcus' new output is amazing if I was to be its judge, but it's acquired taste. You have got to love your music really minimal yet loud, linear yet deep and throbbing, very driving yet not fast paced, repetitive yet captivating, you have to dive all in or you'll feel like you're listening to the same three tracks on repeat for seventy minutes.
The underground lives!

Hmmm actually I'm kindof dissapointed by this album. OK I'm giving my impressions just after a few listens, maybe it will grow on me after a while but for now it's not quite what I was expecting.

Basically you have some old Delta sounds and ideas but worked in a different way. For starters, most of the tracks are slower (at least they feel slower, I suppose mostly because the "droning sound" is absent this time). Also they use pads, but not the looong ospheric pads that would sometimes run all throughout the track (and which were what I liked most about old Delta). Also, interestingly enough, some tracks sound like Midi Miliz even though the Miliz boys have left the project! Wierd, huh?

The opening track is a killer indeed... but it also remids me of Midi Milliz - Dos Canones... which kindof makes it less special. Still, this is one of the best tracks on the album IMO.

Then come the 2 Minusman tracks. The breakbeat is cool in the beginning but personally I kindof expected it to pick up in some way or another which it never did. Also the distortion on the kicks is too high IMO. I'm not saying that I don't like distortions, but here we are sometimes in white noise territory, that's how much distortion there is.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes has some nice ideas but it's too slow IMO. If you had the same pads on a the trademark Delta fast droning bassline this would've been much better IMO.

Midnight Circulator Rmx is a lot more oldschool Delta... although I must say that I found other oldschool Delta tracks more memorable. Why not make a Def By Delta or Travelling at the Speed of Thought remix? Now that would've been something!

Overpressure is basically minimal techno with some tribal influences... not very elaborate but it's actually one of the better tracks on this album IMO

The Machines sounds pretty much like old Delta... but again something just doesn't sound right IMO.

As A Child I Could Walk On The Ceiling Rmx... finally a remix of one of their best tracks. BUT but again, something sounds wrong here. It actually sounds like someone blended in some Enigma in the beginning of the track! (yes yes, the Enigma who made Sadeness). Then it's basically the same track as the old one but with a full-on feeling... Yes, The Delta making full-on... at least it's unexpected I'll give you that. Still, the more I listen to it, the more it all starts to make sense. Guess I'll just have to listen to it some more to give a final impression.

Dustbuster sounds more like MidiMilliz then Delta... which is odd considering that the MidiMilliz guys left the project?!
Still, a pretty cool track if you ask me.

Warp - ahh now that's more like it!!! looong atmospheric pads on top of a fast paced bassline. Too bad that they fuck it up with some vocoder voice samples.

Nightmares & Dreamscapes again, this time with a breakbeat. I must say that all of a sudden this makes a lot more sense then the Backstream mix a few track earlier. Nothing to do with psy but pretty cool IMO.

hob sounds indeed like it could've been a soundtrack to the new James Bond. Nice but... nothing to do with The Delta sound. The Bonus track is actually pretty nice, it has Kraftwerk written all over it.

Conclusion I'm not saying it's a BAD album and my feelings is that if I give it some more listens it will grow on me but for now I must say that I'm a bit disapointed with this. I mean, if it was released under another name I might've judged it less harshly but this is The Delta. They're supposed to be überexcellent, not just good