After more than twenty years, returning to the Dreamweb still feels familiar without becoming predictable. There is a very specific atmosphere around mind.in.a.box that has always been difficult to confuse with anything else, somewhere between cold electronics, melancholy, tension and something much more emotional underneath.
Retaliation contains 13 tracks and runs for 71 minutes, so this is not an album made for impatient listening. It needs time, but I never had the feeling that it was simply dragging things out. It works much better when you let it develop instead of jumping from track to track looking for the quickest highlight.
Musically, Retaliation moves between futurepop, technopop, synthpop and trance, with darker electronic passages and retro influences appearing along the way. Genre labels only get you so far with mind.in.a.box, though. Stefan Poiss has developed such a recognisable sound over the years that you usually know within seconds what you are listening to.
His voice remains a huge part of that identity. It can sound human and vulnerable one moment, distant and heavily processed the next, and those changes still fit naturally into the world he has created. The vocal manipulation never feels like an effect added just because it sounds interesting. It belongs to the music and to the constant uncertainty around identity, control and perception that has always been part of the Dreamweb. Review taken from https://www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be/en