Band:	Ciguë
Album:	Swallow The Pain
Style:	Electronic
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Jeff

01. Swallow
02. Your Rope
03. Alive
04. The Key
05. Come Again
06. Beside You
07. My Fate
08. Mine
09. Empire
10. Who Cares?
11. I'm Right
12. Inside
13. Fury Away

Ciguë is the project of two French musicians, Yann Reversat and Joanna Louis. This combo plays some kind of Electro/Indus Gothic Metal, something which is more or less linked with Metal music but which will be in the end only for the fans of the genre. I mean that it will probably be impossible for a basic metalhead to listen to this release, the electro side of the music being too present here?

"Swallow The Pain" is a pure album of Electro Gothic music. Even if we have some real Metal riffs, the music of Ciguë is a lot more Electro than Metal or Gothic. Well of course all the people who use to listen to Electro and Batcave stuff will maybe enjoy it but even if you're a fan of this kind of sound I doubt that the first album of Ciguë will be a memorable album for you. Why? Well the reason is simple; this release is just so monotonous that you'll have the feeling to listen to the same song from the beginning to the end. The voice of Yann Reversat is not really good too and can be boring with time, "Swallow The Pain" is linear as hell and the beats played by some machines are extremely boring.

Even if the production of the album is correct I regret that we don't even have some good ambiances on this album. "Swallow The Pain" is just cold as iron and even if I know that it's a good thing for this kind of music I'm sorry to say that I didn't find anything for me (who is really open minded in general!) in this album. It's cold and repetitive, that's all what I can say and unfortunately I don't see why and how this band should cross the frontier of the underground pubs. They will play there I think and it should be ok but if you're not into this music you'll need a lot of alcohol to resist?

As you can understand the music of Ciguë is for fans only. If you're into Electro Gothic stuff maybe that you'll like "Swallow The Pain" but be warned this is extremely basic and monotonous so don't expect anything surprising here. "Swallow The Pain" is for fans of the genre, only if they're not looking for something new?