Claudia Brücken: Evening Mirror – Album Evaluate
Launched 4 July 2025
CD | Vinyl | DL | Streaming
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Former Propaganda vocalist Claudia Brücken has written a brand new chapter in electro-pop historical past along with her fourth solo album. Evening Mirror builds on her spectacular monitor file whereas giving her sound a extra eclectic really feel. Robert Plummer goes with the circulate.
As soon as controversially described as “Abba from Hell”, German Eighties synth-pop four-piece Propaganda have carved out a extra attention-grabbing afterlife for themselves than their Swedish counterparts.
In spite of everything, Abba’s contribution to twenty first Century tradition has been extra technological than musical, with their digitised selves selling an album of sheer audio purgatory. In the meantime, the one-time ZTT stalwarts have spun off right into a collection of fascinating fragments, of which former frontwoman Claudia Brücken’s new album is the most recent instance.
Detailing all the assorted tasks which have ensued because the unique Propaganda line-up led to 1987 would require a complete Pete Body household tree. However the 2020s have seen a renewed burst of exercise, with the founding foursome lined up in two opposing camps.
Brücken and fellow singer Susanne Freytag made the primary transfer, teaming up with unique producer Steve Lipson as xPropaganda on a revived ZTT label in 2022. Two years later, Ralf Dörper and Michael Mertens returned underneath the unique Propaganda title with a brand new feminine vocalist, Thunder Bae.
With an additional xPropaganda album nonetheless probably within the pipeline, Brücken has chosen to revive her sporadic solo profession with the smooth, subtle Evening Mirror. Opening with a burst of husky Sprechgesang, she makes it clear that she’s not ready to be judged on her previous. “My life began immediately,” she says, “what occurred earlier than simply doesn’t matter.”
In fact, that’s the type of valiant hope that simply makes nostalgia the elephant within the room. As if acknowledging this, Brücken modifications tack instantly with the ruminative Rosebud. “Distant behind a wanting glass/Reminiscences, new from the previous,” she sings in completely enunciated, cut-glass tones.
Already we’re beginning to hear a musical palette that brings heat to the unique permafrost Propaganda soundscape, with Hammond organ offsetting the clipped guitar riffs and circling sequencers. And the sonic thaw continues on subsequent songs, as basic chilled synth motifs coexist with rumbling rock guitar, pizzicato strings and even banjo elements.
The expansive sound is a product of Brücken’s collaboration with producer and co-writer John Williams. He has labored along with her on earlier solo ventures, in addition to on information by artists together with Blancmange and the Housemartins.
“The third time you fall, you stand up once more/And then you definately run, you’re sooner than anybody,” begins Sound And The Fury. Resilience and romance run by this file, as Brücken explores the anguish of loving, dropping and making an attempt once more. “So long as I preserve letting go/Possibly there’ll be nothing left,” she lets slip on The Solely Ones.
The methods that reminiscence performs on us all as we become old are a part of the method too. “Humorous the issues I recall with readability/The others I don’t keep in mind in any respect,” she sighs. Her recollections embody “all of the methods and turns/all of the bruises and the fixed burns” (hopefully metaphorical somewhat than actual).
Acoustic guitars and flute thrives adorn the confessional Sincerely, a downtempo tour that wallows in its personal lovesick languor. “All I do know proper now could be that I’m lacking you,” sings Brücken. However in one other abrupt temper change, the subsequent track sees her stepping out on the dancefloor with the strutting Shadow Dancer, going “the place it’s at all times twilight”.
The album peaks with its penultimate tune, To Be Beloved, as Brücken will get to the guts of the matter: that’s, issues of the guts. Pissed off in her efforts to search out an idyll for herself and her lover, she steadily withdraws from the vocal fray. After she bows out, greater than two minutes earlier than the top of the seven-minute monitor, the remaining is stately instrumental.
The discharge of Evening Mirror comes at a vital juncture for Claudia Brücken. Three years in the past, the UK chart success of xPropaganda’s album The Coronary heart Is Unusual catapulted her again into the limelight. Now, with a bit of luck, she will construct on that revived curiosity to strike massive with this file: it definitely deserves to be her largest solo work but.
~
Yow will discover Claudia Brücken on-line at https://www.claudiabrucken.co.uk. She can be on X as @ClaudiaBrucken1 and on Instagram as @claudiabrucken.
All phrases by Robert Plummer. Extra writing by Robert might be discovered at his creator’s archive. He’s additionally on X as @robertp926.
A Plea From Louder Than Battle
Louder Than Battle is run by a small however devoted unbiased group, and we depend on the small sum of money we generate to maintain the positioning operating easily. Any cash we do get just isn’t lining the pockets of oligarchs or mad-cap billionaires dictating what our journalists are allowed to assume and write, or hungry shareholders. We all know occasions are robust, and we need to proceed bringing you information on essentially the most attention-grabbing releases, the most recent gigs and anything that tickles our fancy. We’re not pushed by revenue, simply pure enthusiasm for a scene that each one in every of us is captivated with.
To us, music and tradition are eveything, with out them, our very souls shrivel and die. We don’t cost artists for the publicity we give them and to many, what we do is completely important. Subscribing to one in every of our paid tiers takes only a minute, and every sign-up makes a huge effect, serving to to maintain the flame of unbiased music burning! Please click on the button beneath to assist.
John Robb – Editor in Chief