Nettwork
Ambient, 2012

Delerium is back, and once again a passel of female vocalists – Stef Lang, Leigh Nash, and the rest – are brought on board to provide the ooh-ooh-woo vocals to all the trance beats in the background. There’s nothing here that deviates from the formula too much. In fact, the abundance of vocals actually make most of these tracks resemble pop tunes, only what could have been exciting experimental background stuff ends up being stale by-the-numbers ambient clichés.

There is the usual Hindu chant track thingy, the Middle-eastern music thingy… nothing that Delerium has not done before, only this time the tracks are shockingly devoid of memorable moments. No surprises, no twists, no awesome moments. Nothing that comes close to making me want to do anything more than to yawn.

If these guys want to go down a route that is more pop, hey, more power to them. But come on, who says pop has to be as dire and dull as the tracks on Music Box Opera? Delerium’s new album in ages only seem to suggest that they have run out of cool ideas, and that’s sad, actually. Still, we will always have Silence, if that’s any consolation.