Tangerine Dream - Goblins Club FLAC download

Goblins' Club sees Tangerine Dream further expanding the range of timbres and sounds available to them in the '90s, building on the hints of creativity that had begun to work their way into the previous two albums. In particular, the opening double act of Towards the Evening Star and At Darwin's Motel find the group most comfortable with contemporary sounds - possibly inspired by 1995's remix album The Dream Mixes. Combining drum loops and breakbeats with ethnic vocal samples and up-to-date synth sounds, the two pieces set the album off to a strong start. Elsewhere, Edgar's symphonic leanings are treated to a little more originality than the uninspired classical bookends found on the previous two albums, with the choir, harp and orchestra samples found on Elf June & The Midnight Patrol (yes, those dodgy titles are still around).Unsurprisingly, it isn't all positive, however. As the album plays on, extended guitar solos begin to creep in again, and divert the listener away from some of the group's strongest electronic music in a while - indeed, Lamb With Radar Eyes is a solid mix of classic TD sounds and '90s breaks until the stadium rock solo comes in and derails the track halfway through (thankfully the album does present a higher percentage of purely electronic music than the band have released since Lily On the Beach back in 1988). Elsewhere, the sound quality is bizarrely low in places - in particular, Elf June & the Midnight Patrol has a very distinct hiss throughout, which is unusually sloppy for a group whose music normally comes highly polished. And then there's the same old issue that has plagued the band since they started writing for CD rather than LP: the album, and many of the tracks themselves, are simply too long. Although the album kicks off with an infectious energy, by the halfway point it begins to sag, and by the end there's that tiresome feeling that the whole thing has dragged on far too long again (the Stratosfear-aping bonus track on later issues doesn't help the matter).Goblins' Club is the most Tangerine Dream-sounding Tangerine Dream album for a long time, and certainly their best since Lily On the Beach. As a standalone record, it's mediocre; in context of the band's career, it continues the long, slow improvement, with promise that they might once again record an album worthy of their name.