Electronic producer Hannes Norrvide began his Lust for Youth project when he wanted to join a punk band but only had access to a cheap, often malfunctioning keyboard.
His earliest output was dark and noisy, culminating in 2012's causticly lo-fi full-length Growing Seeds, a fuzzy and hookless collection of tracks that brimmed over with difficult, empty emotional pull.
With third album Perfect View, Norrvide has shifted focus and pulled the curtain of noise away from Lust for Youth, focusing more on cleaner instrumental tracks and highlighting the use of rudimentary samples to convey his ever-heavy moods.
He sticks to displaced snippets of movie dialogue or found sounds, and drops these samples over cold synth-based instrumentals, evoking the spirit of desperation and dread found in Ministry's earlier club-friendly work or some phases of Skinny Puppy.
The chilling "Barcelona" consists of a minimal drum machine pulse, some thick bass stabs, and a sample of a near-sobbing voice begging "Can't we just leave this place?" The driving title track starts out with a far-off sample of a pastor preaching violently to his congregation before an acid bassline wobbles its way into focus, building tension for almost eight minutes.
The few vocal-heavy tracks "Vibrant Brother," "Another Day," and "Breaking Silence" maintain the same dour melodicism and shouty goth vocals from earlier albums, but the production is so much more vivid that the entire mood shifts.
Some fans may miss the layers of static, but Perfect View succeeds with its thoughtful omission.
By subtracting certain musical elements, noise, or even vocals when he's not feeling them, Norrvide strips the project to its barest essentials and allows listeners a chance to really hear the perpetually uneasy emotions at its core.