Endure (Deluxe Edition)

ENDURE is an album that, 4 years after after its release, does indeed endure, and cements Assemblage 23 as an artist well worth your time. Tom Shear continues to put out rich music — that balances hope, anger, sadness, and an appeal to humanity to do better — in a lovely mixture that's as inspiring as it is haunting. It's also one of my favorite of his albums, no small feat as his existing discography already contains some of the best EBM out there. If you enjoy this CD, I also highly recommend Bruise, Compass, Meta and Storm. Favorite tracks? Call the Dawn, Afterglow, Butterfly Effect and Barren. I'm also kind of in love with the bonus track Ignorance, a bit of a departure from Shear's normal sound, with a wonderfully upbeat and pumping dance rhythm juxtaposed against a darkly comedic criticism of willful stupidity. If you find yourself surrounded by people who bury their heads in the sand (or have been known to do this yourself) you'll probably find something to smile about here. Greatly looking forward to the next album, and spending many years listening to it again and again as well.

Very good album. My only criticism of is that in my opinion he should've distorted his voice like he's done on past albums. The lyric content calls for voice distortion.

This wasn't the normal quality that Tom puts out. Still pretty good, but not up to the standard of previous albums. The biggest thing for me was the lyrics were very worldly, instead of the normal self loathing, story of someone else struggles, or attacking a social issue. I would have given this 3 stars if not for Goliath redeeming it.

Solid album. Refreshing. Love the complex synths.

Another STORM has come...