A tape! A cassette! A band! When was the last time I reviewed a music cassette or even held one in my hands? Was that 10 years ago??? Probably less than more, nonetheless, the fact that cassettes are still available! Maybe for the retiree gang with the AMIGOS and such Schlager stuff, but otherwise??!?! Well, I was truly blown away when I opened this fabric bag, saw a paper sleeve, and found the cassette inside.... In an instant, I traveled 25 years back in time.
For this surprise, the DIY approach, the spirit of the times, and everything else, there are immediately 2 bonus points. However, ANTIMANIFEST doesn't need this at all. Their 5-track cassette EP captivates me for the full 17 minutes. Unfortunately, the EP isn't longer.... what a shame...
First, though, the problem: just as long as I haven't held a cassette in my hands, the tape deck hasn't been in action... I was sure that the connections, the amplifier, and the speakers were fine, because now and then I do put on a vinyl record, but the tape deck??? Just opening the cassette compartment took forever, but that hadn't been quite right for years. Then, just to be safe, I cleaned the tape head and off we went.... The cassette is running, and a wonderful sound comes from the speakers, melodic punk rock with a slightly raspy voice. Thank goodness without an Austrian dialect, because that's where the three ANTIMANIFEST members come from. But then, dropouts in the left speaker, the level indicator on the tape deck shows everything is fine.... And this happened several times, even on the B-side...
But after the third run of the tape, all dropouts are gone, the pickups/signals to the speakers are settled in, and that's good, because the 5 songs are simply awesome, and once the tape deck is running, it runs longer... The tape deck has now practically warmed up, as the tape has already played so often... Only flipping the tape after 10 or 7 minutes (A or B side) is annoying ;-)
Where I was reminiscing about the past in the introduction, I have to share an anecdote about the 5 songs: at the beginning of "Computerwarrior," you can hear the old modem dial-up sound, and at the end, the sound of shutting down a Windows 7 (or 10?!?!) computer, definitely not from Windows 95, which is what the song is about.
Conclusion: awesome 5-track MC EP that anyone who loves melodic (punk) rock music must have in their MC collection! (for the younger ones, the download is also sufficient as an alternative!)
