First a double strike, then the big hush: After “Sinners International” and “The Death Of Romance” were released with barely a year between these two masterpieces, Norway's Electro Rock connoisseurs vanished from view. Except for their unforgettable live appearances, the ZEROMANCER camp fell silent, a whole three years had to pass until a new album was finally born. “Bye-Bye Borderline” is its name – and sounds like a perfect embodiment of the title: Melancholic, bipolar, in one moment brimful with positive energy, in another falling into a bottomless depth. Sure, pleasure and pain share the same bed. Yet, nobody knew until now they were really that close: With the trained eye for pain and sorrow that made hymns like “My Little Tragedy” to milestones of melancholy in recent years, ZEROMANCER advance with new determination, armed to the teeth with the biggest of emotions. Love, hate, desperation or sacrifice are not only empty words for ZEROMANCER, but razor-sharp songs for the next breakdown. Electro Rock mysticism in the purest sense of the word – sensual, highly erotic and altogether much too dangerous.
Songs like “Auf Wiedersehen Boy”, the big closing monument “Tortured Artist” or the biting title track prove just how much anger and bitterness piled up in the last three years. They drag a raw Industrial Rock edge back into the ZEROMANCER sound that finally stands for all things dark, infamous and forbidden again. But ZEROMANCER are more than that: The slow-motion serenade of self-destruction called “Manoeuvres” would even stir emotions in a rotten heart. Ambivalent, layered, passionate and abysmal is the guise of “Bye-Bye Borderline” – beginning with the title itself. Do ZEROMANCER sing about healing or disease? About life or death? “Ash Wednesday” certainly is on death's side, although hope seeps through some of the wonderful melodies like the sun through thick clouds. Dance, cry, hush or hope – no matter what it is: ZEROMANCER have just the right music for it. More intimate, more intense Electro Rock has yet to be invented.
