It's always with shivers of excitement mixed with fear that we meet up with an old love, and S.I.N.A is no exception. In the early 2000s, the German band formed by singer Sina Hübner and keyboardist Stefan Böhm, joined for a time by Frank Klatt, made their mark with their raging powernoise, before the same members shifted the bulk of their work to their brilliant dark electro band Pzychobitch - we told this story in our article about them. While Stefan Böhm has since worked on other projects, Sina Hübner gave up music in 2006, after the end of Pzychobitch. But the end is over: in this year 2024, Sina finally re-forms S.I.N.A with Stefan Böhm! Expectations are high, as are fears: the 2000s and their techno-industrial wave are long gone. But we really want this comeback to work, so we're rushing to the new album, their third under this name: Alte Liebe.
The first thing that strikes you about Alte Liebe is its diversity. Not only do we hear devastating dancefloor tracks, but also sinister ambiences that envelop us to the sound of Sina Hübner's eerie vocals; they draw their sounds not only from EBM and techno, but also from post-punk and electro-clash, an influence that was already palpable on Pzychobitch's last album. This new S.I.N.A is no longer just a powernoise band, but has mutated to adopt a personal style at the crossroads of electro-industrial musics. What hasn't changed, however, is their effectiveness: the rhythms are haunting, the structures unstoppable, Sina's vocals ferocious and irresistible. S.I.N.A draws us into its world of sheet metal, electronics and ferocious appetites for survival in the midst of this dehumanized universe; we surrender to the band's energy on the most pounding tracks, and dream along with them on the most soaring ones.
It's delicious, so we regret that Alte Liebe is so short. The album gets off to a wonderful start with Nicht Ich and its coldwave guitar, reminiscent of the best hours of Velvet Acid Christ's Lust For Blood period, but with melancholy female vocals; Little Girl, on the other hand, takes us into an industrial atmosphere where the EBM-style hammered rhythm and Sina's implacable vocals crush us; Gefühlschaos and Bauchgefühl return to the ultra-fast tracks with their crazy structures, before we slide into the calm Alles (In Mir) with its beautiful synthesiser strings and dreamy vocals. .. That's it for the original tracks, and we're in for one surprise after another! But we mustn't overlook the remixes: while Ah Cama-Sotz's remix of Little Girl is hardly convincing, we are seduced by the unleashed mechanicity of Monolith's remix of the same track, as well as by the stifling character of Cervello Elettronico's remix of Gefühlschaos.
So there's no need to prevaricate: Alte Liebe is a valuable gem, rich in sounds, effectively danceable and capable of beautiful dark and industrial ambiences. The familiar coldness of S.I.N.A will have warmed our hearts.
