Ner\ogris
Fame Fatale
Fakenoise
German duo Ner\ogris (occasionally stylized as nero.gris, much to the consternation of ID3 tag purists) have wide ranging resumes going back to the 90s which befit their stone soup approach to modern electro, drawing upon EBM, downtempo, dark electro, and plenty more sub styles. While their 2023 debut I Am The Shadow – I Am The Light served as a solid introduction to Kai Neugebauer and Tino Claus’ combined ear for those sounds, new LP Fame Fatale tightens things up into a slick and sleek package while still maintaining that variety.
The swaggering stomp of “Antithese”, which adorns a breakbeat in alternately metallic and crystalline programming, serves as a strong and steely calling card for Ner\ogris. Cod-symphonic bell and string hits careen around the stereo spectrum, adding some spatial depth as well as rhythmic counterpoint. It’s the sort of grand and portentous but also immediate club number we used to get on the regular from the likes of [:SITD:] but which, frankly, have been exported from Germany in much shorter supply over the last decade.
Even when not going for something quite as maximalist, the production and arrangement on slow and grinding numbers like “Graves” and the stoic EBM of “A View” brings electro tropes and styles into a refreshed focus. They also sound just as comfortable on the bright and uptempo “La Hora El Ganador”, where glimmering, sleek synth melodies providing a contrast to the strained and distorted vocals (not unlike a number of moments in the Solitary Experiments and Tyske Ludder catalogs). Factor in some moodier instrumentals and you have a fairly wide tour of electro territory taken in just forty minutes.
Nothing about Fame Fatale aims to reinvent the wheel.If you spent serious time in industrial clubs fifteen or twenty years back the formula of these cuts will be familiar (and possibly nostalgic), but Nero\gris’ talent for details – knowing exactly how much echo to flesh out cuts with, when to add or drop drum fills – are a welcome reminder of how rich this sound can be when it’s done well. Recommended.
