Album Review

Yendri – Destination Oblivion

• 2nd Feb 2010

Yendri continues what seems like her endless mission to release an album every year since over a decade ago. This is her 10th album – and there is no sign of decline in terms of quality in her output. If anything you can see the continual growth of her music. Whilst she retains heavy techno beats and gothic influences, each album release seems to be all the more masterful in terms of her mixing and sound techniques.

Take a song like “Can’t let Go” and you can see where her music has grown. It is perhaps a song that could have appeared on a previous release, but it is much more a refined tune in terms of her use of layering sounds.

What also astonishes is just hoe packed her albums tend to be. This latest release is 15 tracks long. There are going to be hits and misses with fans depending on what mood they prefer their Yendri to be in, but for the most part this has a constant low mood to it.

The album starts with a strong industrial beat in “Me Machine.” Yendri is good at many things, but one thing in particular is her ability to open a lot of her tracks memorably. Whether it is the electronic strumming of “Can’t Let Go” or the dark Chimes of “Coolness is Superior,” or the dance keyboard of “dead” she knows how to give shape and balance to her music.

Probably the biggest highlight here is “Ambitionless” which is a prime example of her making a song memorable that is essentially also quite stripped down and hollow. Those that like simplicity in their dark music will love this track.

But then songs like “Can’t Let go” and “So Shall it be” make you wonder how her music might sound if she stepped away from the electronic keyboard and got the real instruments in. There is a scope to her music that is just waiting to burst out with expanded instrumentation in a future release.