21.09.08: Painkiller review: De:Bug Magazine

"Zerocrop has worked with Billie Ray Martin and the most fashionable hat designer Justin Smith, and has performed live at Berghain. His last album Fucked is mainly about sex and drugs, but somehow without genre-specific hysteria and cheap instrumentation (that make so many electronic pop productions so ridiculous and pointless these days; please consult the last report of your choice about Colourful-Attire-Protest-Youth of the month). Zerocrop is much closer to the good ones in the tradition of synth-pop than to the hordes of disposable follow-ups. The reason mainly being that he writes good pop songs, sings them with a rather good pop voice and furnishes them with good pop-arrangements. in addition there are the lyrics, that are not at all pop and intensively deal with unromantic themes that predominate on the album: in the asylum, in prison, in faith, at war, in love, at night, at the fringes, in the head. But there are those pretty melodies on top, that accompany drones, pedal steel, cello and backwards loops. Fantastic album." Finn Johannsen, De:Bug Magazine, September 2008.