Melissa London and Noel
Johannes are Project 12:01 based out of Colorado. They add 3 more members when
playing live (Brendan Connolly, Devin Connolly and Cliff Pfeifer) and have
recently played at the Dark Arts Festival and opened for Gene Loves Jezebel.
They could be described as darkwave/etherial, though one song on this CD pushes
them into EBM territory...a territory they should explore more
fully.
The vocals mostly have a whispery little-girl quality to them which is very soothing, though I feel Melissa's Bjork-like qualities could be used with great effect with some faster songs as well. She also, at times, reminds me of the latter form of Switchblade Symphony...somewhat trip-hoppy/ethereal-goth. This Heaven and Spill were the two songs that brought Bjork and Switchblade Symphony to mind and I liked the mixture of male and female vocals on Beyond These Streets.
The song I liked the most is Taste. It starts with a busy signal and evolves into a danceable EMB-style song which reminded me of a UK band, Inertia (good thing). Another reviewer mentioned Battery/Collide (also good). They should pursue this direction since this song is so well done.
The rest of the songs were too slow and dreamy for my taste - good for listening at home, but maybe not as good in a club. I suppose they would be crowd-pleasers at an ethereal goth night and would easily fill a dancefloor with all sorts of swooping gothlings doing lightbulb-changing dances, but I wouldn't be one of that crowd.
Melissa keeps a Dream Journal on their website (a place to find lyric inspiration?). The website is very well done and gives all sorts of information, photos, reviews and bios to learn more about the band. Unfortunately, due to a problem with a CD drive, I was unable to check out the "slick multimedia interface" when you play it on a computer. Overall a tentative thumbs-up from me.
Contact Information:
Post: Project 12:01, PO Box 670, Eastlake, CO, 80614-0670
E-Mail: project1201@project1201.com
Web: http://www.project1201.com
