High-class farewell to the world stage

The career of Alphaville is like a steady descent to überragendem start. The debut album "Forever Young" United extremely catchy melodies with good songwriting and already very sophisticated production. The superior, better in every way "successor Afternoons" in Utopia already received much less attention, while all subsequent albums remained almost unnoticed, so the group was always reduced to their greatest hits.

However, all the successors have the same or greater attention should be paid than the debut. "Salvation" is no exception. After the experimental "Prostitute", the group was here back to their electronic roots. The result is an excellent darkly warm album that dimension is about the artistic average time of its construction.
"Inside Out" is the gentle introduction, the subdued pace is increased with the warm "Monkey in the Moon" on. The following "Guardian Angel" is the first highlight, melody, vocals and songwriting forms an outstanding title in which the problem of euthanasia is discussed. "Wishful thinking" is just as powerful and melodic, but is preparing a change of mood. The following title "Flame" and "Point of no return" lead to calmer climes, however, while Flame radiates warmth and optimism, point of no return is cold and mysterious.

With "Control" the pace is picked up again, this title is for me but a real nuisance; the brilliance of the predecessor is achieved in any way, the piece acts as one of the countless arbitrary interchangeable titles, cavorting in the 90 in the charts. "Dangerous place" slows down the pace of turn. The song leaves a mixed impression; as mid-tempo techno it is very atypical, but melody and vocals create an intense darkly mysterious mood whereby the song can be seen as successful. The same applies to the powerful "Spirit of the Age", which also moves on the border with 90s monotony, without going over, however.

The last three pieces close again completely on the excellent first half of the album. "Soul Messiah" united once powerful production, profound songwriting and driving melody. "New Horizon" directs the fast-paced atmosphere of its predecessor back in calmer waters, where mood and atmosphere increased steadily.
"Pandoras Lullaby" leads the darkly warm atmosphere the album to a sublime degree, but can also be regarded as completely separate entity. This epic, implemented with classical orchestral piece is an absolute stroke of genius of the group to which one would not have expected such a thing until then. Although sentiment connected to the rest of the album, it still looks disconnected, you might say, the album contains 11 + 1 Song. Compared with the much acclaimed "Forever Young" this is for me the clear better, because more complex and grander title of the band.

Ultimately, it's then failure of the album (number 97 in the dt. Album Charts) not surprising, because from the 90s, the trend tended to concise but little real level of music. For albums like this one needs time, not only to the quality of the songs to be discovered little by little, but also to be able to comprehend the album as a complete work. The criticism expressed above, the album drifts towards the end in Techno and trivial from, must be vigorously opposed and answered with the counter-accusation that the Rezenzenten seem to have heard the album only to the ninth title. Only then would give this criticism a certain sense.

Finally, it should be noted:
Friends of today's chart music should be this album's fingers, friends of the 80, and unbiased listener who prefers syntehtische sounds and some patience should give him a chance. It is worth it.