I have never fully understood why many critics are so vehemently opposed to remix albums. In a sense, a remix album is like having christmas twice each year: Once, you get to celebrate with your family and then you invite over your best friends for a blockrocking party. That's what Promotheus Burning have done for „nBoyde raRepi“.

"The remixes aren't typical," vocalist Nikki Telladictorian (you can't go wrong with a name like that!) remarked on these tracks in an interview for – wow! - the Pittsburgh City Paper, "They took a piece of our work and made it their own.“ The details and nuances of „nBoyde raRepi“ are however, much more intricate than that.

On the one hand, of course, Prometheus Burning fans (and with almost 26000 visits and 3400 friends to their MySpace profile, there seem to be quite a few of them) will find plenty of material that goes beyond the territory their favourite band have covered until now. „nBoyde raRepi“ extends into goa, acid and psychedelic, into distorted electro, breakbeats and hiphop. It has more brutishly extreme passages on offer than its source material, as well as peeling layers of surprising tenderness off the aggressive onion that was „Beyond Repair“. By all means, it is a different album than its predecessor and an even more headstrong one to boot.

On the other hand, these pieces all stem from a close circle of artists, they are not products of commercial calculations, but of friendship. Quite naturally, they have turned from prosaic remix jobs into statements of respect. You can hear how much of the original music each and every performer has left intact so as not to destroy its initial spirit and soul. By this audible thread of mutual understanding, both records are inseparably linked.

As a consequence, „nBoyde raRepi“ sounds like an alternative vision of „Beyond Repair“. It is not one of these filler albums to bridge time until the band churns out new material, but a complement to a work which has managed to inspire beyond its scene. And take our word on it: it is going to shake up any Christmas party!

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Prometheus Burning
Homepage: Hive Records