German Regicide take off where they left me one and a half year ago with their exciting album ‘Viorus’; one of my favorite releases of 2004. Opener ‘Plastic Dove’ shows all the bands potential. Bombastic music with ease turned into perfect delicacy leading to yet another orchestral outburst. One of the biggest efforts is the perfect combination of male and female vocals. One thing that keeps this music interesting for me is the perfect balance between both singers. Not the greatest of voices when listened to individually, but together of spine tinkling beauty.

The slightly torn vocals of Frauke Richter combine perfectly with the orchestral and bombastic sections of music and suit the low key and vocals of Timo Sudhoff which are just loud enough in the mix to bring perfect harmony.

The sound on the album in overall is close to perfect, leaving room for all instruments to excel with special mention of the keyboards and of course the violin.

One question that I find hard to answer is whether the new album is better than its predecessor. It’s hard to compare an album that one has listened to for about a hundred times with four or five spins of ‘Breaking The Silence’. For the moment I prefer the previous album, just because I feel that the new album features one or two tracks that aren’t as good as the larger part of the cd. Then again, it won’t be the first time that my least favorite tracks turn out to be the real gems on a silver disc.