Art Of Decay

Escape From Virtuality - CD1

Tracklist:

To the stars and back again

emotions

(no) escape to the other side

Reviews:

Sordid magazine, Ireland

Art of Decay come from that hotbed of musical talent... Belgium? OK, maybe not, but Belgium has produced one classic band, Front 242. At first, there is a certain similarity between the two bands, sharing the same dark European electro sound. AoD, however, do veer closer to darkwave, with a slower, darker sound and droning vocals. Their sound is fairly repetitive, 'though it does create a nice hypnotic atmosphere. That is until the eighth track, 'In this World', where the sound suddenly branches off into techno-Goth. It's nicely done, if a bit unfocussed. Then, suddenly, 'Society-grasp' kicks in with a synth-pop influenced sound. From then on, the sound twists and turns, dragging in elements of numerous different styles, everything from trance to industrial. All in all, it is very interesting and varied, but at 15 tracks and over an hour's running time, it is a bit heavy going.

Review in Chain D.L.K. , Italy

selfproduced promocd-15tx-67' Art Of Decay are a Belgian band at their first CD, after two demotapes (all reviewed on past issues of Chain D.L.K.) and some appearances on various compilations. ESCAPE FROM VIRTUALITY is a good record of songs on the edge between "classic" electro and dark-EBM, marked by a monochord and sober voice, which recalls the often minimal arrangements of some tracks. The tendency is in fact oriented to a dark approach, accompanied by rigid rhythms, yet very danceable in some cases. Then, this CD has a ROM part, containing an offline version of the Art Of Decay and LD50 website (the side project by members of the band), with tons of photos from live gigs, their complete history and some really interesting MP3's with live material too, so if you've not been so lucky as to have this promotional copy (hehhe...), I would advise you to check it out at the address below, to find out more about this very good act. Ah: hey you out there, Art Of Decay are still without a label, and that's too bad... Band Contact: Stefan Scheers, Oever 12, 2550 Kontich, Belgium

Review on Synthetics Magazine - website , Germany

Art of Decay ist ein EBM Duo aus Belgien, das sich auch schon auf selbsterstellten Promo CD´s klasse Sachen einfallen lassen. Neben den sage und schreibe 15 Songs, gibt es auch noch einige Songs im Mp3 Format und die komplette Webseite der Band in Form einer CDPlus. Meinen Favoriten auf dieser CD fand ich dann auch sehr schnell und beinabe, wäre dieser Song, nämlich `(No) escape to the other side` mit auf unseren Musik aus Strom Sampler gekommen, wenn die Post in Belgien nicht noch langsamer wäre als unsere. Der eben angesprochene Titel ist ruhig langsam und sehr eingänglich. Der sonst oft verstärkt eingesetzte Gesang von Art of Decay findet hier keinen Einsatz, dafür flüstert Sänger Tom Adams ins Mikro und verleiht diesem Song einen wirklichen Schaurigen Charakter. Der folgende Track `Maybe?` beschäftigt sich mit der Frage ob es wirklich einen Gott gibt. Daran wird man schon erkennen, das Art of Decay nicht einfach irgendwelche Songs produzieren, sondern sich sehr wohl Gedanken über alltägliche Dinge des Lebens machen. Einfache aber auch geniale Melodien wie bei `Hypnotized` zeichnen eine Electronic Band aus, und wenn diese Melodien dann noch nicht mal geklaut sind, sondern aus der eigenen Feder stammen, kann man zu recht stolz auf sich sein. Stolz bin ich, und zwar auf Art of Decay, die keine Erwartungen an eine Promo CDR offen lassen werden. Ich bin mir fast sicher, das auch die zum Verkauf freigegebene Version einiges zu bieten haben wird und deshalb könnt ihr diese CD, auch direkt bei Stefan Scheers bestellen. Wertung: 89%

Review on Darker Than The Bat- website, Belgium

This band couldn't wait to let people hear their new recordings and that is why they are sending around promotional copies. More than one hour of dark-electro/EBM from the Belgian band Art Of Decay that was formed in 1996. They have released 2 demo tapes so far and appeared on various compilations. After one year of recording the new CD is ready. They are now working out a full colour cover artwork for the official release. Their danceable music has a lot of variety but the voices could be better. You can hear a lot of influences what makes the CD never boring. This is a band at the beginning of its musical career and we believe in a positive evolution.

Review in Side-Line Magazine, Belgium

I already crossed this name on compilations and we even got an ond demo from this Belgian band. Their latest work "Escape from virtuality" has been now recorded on cd-format and that's for sure more credible to introduce yourself as band and name! Despite of all their efforts, this demo sounds really poor and even inconsistent! Art of Decay first of all suffer from a lack of material, bet they're not able to take the maximum out of their equipment! The result is a simplistic dark electronic music containing elementary bass lines and even old fashioned percussion sounds! And I forget to mention the rather poor sound-recording of this demo! (DP:3)

Megakitsch Overdose - Tape/MD2

The second Art of Decay tape, pure electro, but with a personal interpretation, which means that it sounds different from most other electro-projects.

Tracklist:

Your mind is over (live)

Wargames (live)

Reviews:

Review by ECLIPSE ZOUNDS magazine, BELGIUM (issue #1)

If I am not mistaken, this is the second demo from the Belgian duo Stefan and Tom. All tracks on this tape were created between December '97 and June '98, added with some live tracks. The band declares: "The music on this tape is not recommended for people who claim themselves having a 'good taste'." What a demo it is... They really don't care about the current electro-ethics, and I admire and encourage that healthy attitude. Most of the songs are sober in a trancy way. You could thus describe AoD's style as hard trance. Songs like "Revenge", "Too Dark To See" etc. are truly danceable. Others like "Fuckin' Bitch" are quite powerful and experimental. Nice effort and worthy of your money. (DJ: 8)

Review by D.L.K.'zine, ITALY (issue #6)

This 1998 release of the Belgian duo Art of Deacy represents their second tape work (after the 1997 "of daydreams and nightmares") and features 13 tracks of electro body music balancing between the classical indus-fluenced art of doing it and its more eclectic version, including the integration of more avantgarde, dark and noise elements in the sound. At times it sounds a bit outdated but most of the stuff isn't too bad and will be appriciated also by those who love very good electronic music, notwithstanding the guys state that "the music on this tape is not recommened for people who claim themselves having a good taste". The two guys under the Art of Decay pseudoniem also run another musical project called LD50. So if you meet one of the two names please make sure to give them the appropriate support! Marc Urselli-Schärer

Compilation Contributions

Even dogs in the wild (CD - 1997), Daft records (Belgium) track: Crashtek part 2

Destroyed Electronics (tape - 1997), Esc. 3 organisation (Belgium) track: Crashtek part 1

Tape Heads Volume #2 (tape - 1998), Haltapes (USA) track: Suicide Voltage II -

electronic vivisection (CD - 1999), Possesive Blindfold (USA) & COde (Belgium) track: fuckin' bitch

deCOder (CD - 2000), COde (Belgium) track: to the stars and back again

The Darkest Hour of 2000 (CDR - 2000), Darkest Hour (Belgium) track: social antichrist

Overview of gigs in the past

Friday 20th February 1998, JH Sentroem, Mechelen (Belgium) bands : Art of Decay, The Autopsy

Friday 17th April 1998, JH Top-ya, St. Katelijne Waver (Belgium) bands : Art of Decay

Friday 13th November 1998, Los Buenos, Leuven (Belgium) bands : Art of Decay, Arcanon, Diavorine

Friday 8th January 1999, 't Staminee, Mechelen (Belgium) bands : Art of Decay

Saturday 14th August 1999, Festival, Berlaar (Belgium) bands : Freestyle Fabriek, Art of Decay, ...

Saturday 5th February 2000, Preselection Eurorock 2000 1st. ed., Neerpelt (Belgium) bands :

Harmony & The Wizard, Foochow, Obverse Reality, Art of Decay, Keltgar, Insanity Reigns Supreme, Propulsion, Feature

Saturday 10th March 2000, Preselection Eurorock 2000 FINAL, Neerpelt (Belgium) bands :

Art of Decay, Propulsion, Hermaxiss, Obverse Reality, Cantar, Keltgar, Mandylion

Of daydreams and nightmares - Tape/MD1

This is the very first tape from Art of Decay, containing mainly rhytmic electro-wave tracks but also some sound experiments which would later lead to the forming of the project LD50