It is likely not for nothing that
Majeure
shares its name with one of the most notable albums by
Tangerine Dream
, as the steady sequencer arrangement which slowly opens the album's first track,
"The Dresden Codex,"
certainly doesn't sound far removed from that act's work. Or, unsurprisingly, from
Zombi
, whose drummer
A. E. Paterra
maintains
as his solo side project. The nervous, quick-paced percussion that appears in the song soon after it begins ends up matching the frenetic bite of some of the synth parts just so. Overall, the three-track album is as classic a take on '70s-into-'80s non-dance electronic music as any, perhaps the only logical equivalent to the beardo-disco trend of the early 21st century exemplified by acts like
Lindstrom
and
Prins Thomas
. At just under ten minutes,
"Teleforce"
is the shortest song here, and furthers the
comparison a touch by sounding like a soundtrack effort -- though perhaps
Vangelis
would be the better reference point, given how this feels like a slicker but no less ominous riff on some of that musician's groundbreaking work for
Blade Runner
. The concluding title track, the album's longest, has the exact feel of a classic side-long vinyl effort of the time, sweeping, futuristic even if now in an inevitably retrospective sense, riding a proto-superhighway of information defined less by
Wired
and more by
Omni
. ~ Ned Raggett