Index of reviews a-f
Active media disease: Lost. mcd Cyberware productions
First two songs is wasnt to convinced by this finnish act, blending melancholic pop with Nine inch nails like aggressivity, although its very well done, but then the next track they suddenly change direction and deliver a dark electrocrossover piece and then after that a totally wonderful blend of slow melancholism and rythmic distorted power that totally impressed me, lets just hope they grow in the right direction. 6/10
Angels of life in a psychic wasteland CD Eerie
Eerie records is without a doubt one of the world leading record companys in the experimental
world genre who doesnt indulge in mass pseudomelancholia and has here made a compilation
album, probably to attract attention to the genre and to gather some of the leaders in this kind
of music today. Also perhaps to get out with their politcal message, which seems to be of
some importance to the label..As any cd compilation its got its ups and downs, but as a whole
i must say that i ammmost impressed by the music here displayed.Although this genre has its
fett in music tahat is the same as centurys ago they here show a level of idees and cretivness
that is very refreshing and shows tahat is probably a very good thing to step back from todays
conventions to be ble to look forward.Groups such as Suonihiuksisto, Vas deferens
organisation, Stock, hausen and walkman, Deep turtle, Violent onsen geisha and Drain all
display fantastic music and idees and it also feels great to get away from the lack of humour
and selfdistance that unfortunatley is a fact in most of todays music. 9/10
Arcana: Cantar de procella Cd Cold meat inustry
What irritates me when listening to the otherwise amazing dark melodic structured medivial songs on the second Arcana album is that amidst all the great chants voices and different instuments they still use only a short bit of melody and repeat it over and over again, with no difference, but differently used instruments. Unlike with repetetive rythms, were the repetition becomes a strength, it here gets a bit boring. Its still very good, and Arcana is probably one of the best bands playing this genre, but to reach the real heights one would lie a little lbit more difference in the songs. You get a glimpse of it in songs such as Chant of the awakening and Salvar de profundis, so well just hope they´ll evolve in the right direction.
Armageddon dildos: We are what we are. cds Metronome
I Love some of the dildos material, think of homocidal
maniacs for exampel, simply ashtonising, but this is mere crap.Really. The arrangements are still
fantastic, the vocals good, the melodies worse and commercial shit, but what really upsets me is the
lyrics: "rave on, lets sweat, baby were not finshed yet" or "i feel right waiting for this friday night".
How the f**k can you write that shit, it sounds like old eurohouse lyrics that fortunatley died out years ago. Six remixes of the song that are just as bad, this is a cd i dont advice you to buy."Were going to dance until we drop" 2/10 "move to the music"
Cat rapes dog: biodegradable. cd Energy
These worldfamous Swedish cyberpunks has given as some amazing material, and this is no different, although some additional personal and som more modern techno influences, the remain one of the most interesting bands in this genre, going from soft songs to harder crossover like and always the harsh male ore soft/sharp female vocals to give colour and depth to the songs. Also some of the funniest lyrics ever written. 7/10
Coil : Windowpane and the snow. World serpent distrubution
This is a collection of remixes done on the songs windowpane and the snow, mostly by coil but also Jack Dangers, John Balance and Drew Mcdowall. However, sadly all the remixes but on is commercial dance tracks that achieve nothing. A disappointment. 3/10
Controlled Bleeding: Songs from the ashes cd Relic
Rerealese of the "Music from the scourging grounds album, now remixed ore reworked, plus a couple of new tracks on Relic, the experimental sublabel to Project. The sound is a rather mellow belnd of orchestral music and dark ambient, ranging from both totally orchestral, sung pieces to experimental ambient ones. Sadly though this is not one of CB s better albums, neither the dark ambinet ore the orchestral tracks really gets any goodand when they start to play a nice fluffy track with a cute saxophone in the beginning it just gets to much. Only a few tracks emerge out of the fog, therest seems like a rather faint attempt to commerciality. 5/10
Die form: Vicious circles-best of. cd Hyperium
Since 1278 this legendary french sado masochistic band has been pumping out their unique blend of dark electro, industrial and techno and they have a remarkable back catalouge to pick from, so compiling this best of could hardly be anything but a sucess.And it isnt, this album is truly fantastic, i dont hink there is any other band who manages to make this kind of music whith such a succes.Rangng from more experimental pieces to techno and electro, the´ve always kept their on style and managed to make tremendous music.Especialy the vocals are fantastic, both Elaines classical voice and the processed male fit the music perfectly and the lyrics and their subject is something not to miss-this album is a must 10/10
Download: Charlies family soundtrack. cd Subconcious communications
This is the soundtrack for the charlie Wanwebber film about Charles
Manson that download recorded in 95. Its a 48 minuites long rather experimental album, you can
really hear its sountrack music, it contains just the right atmosphere and some of the songs are
fantastic such us "yes" "trick or treat" or "beatuful" , sometimes though it gets a bit to difficult though
and you probably have to be really in to experimental music to appriciate it. It is how ever a work of
true genius and that shows. It also cointains some of the most intelligently used soundsamples ive
heard, only wish i could get my hands on the movie 8/10
Dead Voices on air: New words machine. cd Cleopatra
After being a member of both Zoviet france and Download as well as numerous other projects Mark spybey should now todays experimental music in and out, and it certainly shows.He makes fantastic ambient textures, long epic songs with noises, sounds and voices layered on each other that create wonderful ambiences that really gets inside your head.On three of this cd´s six trakcs Cevin Key from Skinny puppy has helped out, sadly these songs doesnt reach the asme result, they are less epic much shorter and doesnt at all create the same feelings as in marks work on his own. Still quite good its no longer genius.But i doesnt matter, you still have to buy it if youre in any way interested in this kind of music cause its a classic. 8/10
Deutsch Nepal: Comprendido!... Time stop! ...and world ending.
Cd Cold meat industry.
Lina baby doll aka Deutsh Nepal is definitley one of the leaders for the experimental indutrial genre, this is his fourth fullenght cd and hes just kept on develloping.The sound id less ritual, gone are the etnich influences and its a more electronic sounding album all together.Also for the first time Lina actually sings on a couple of tracks and the result is very good.Some of the tracks are simply genius, slow dark rythmichal pieces ocassional voice samples ore singing that really are fantastic.It almost holds all the way, unforrtunatley on the end the quality goes down a bit, only on three songs but it puts it down from its place as album of the year. Damn good anyway. 8/10
Disinformation: R&D 2 CD Ash international
Second album in the research and development series, taking off were the last one ended, so that the cd starts with song 9. I havnet heard the first cd and hav had only occasional contact with the works of Joe Banks, however i do like the research angle, here concentrating on radiorecordings of such as elctric storms, solar radio emmision and different Vlf/Hf/Elf radio recordings, but a good concept i sjust one thing, then you need to make somethinggood to listen to aswell. It starts of well with a great live track with 13 minuites of rather monotonous Vlf harmonics, but then the the quality drops a bit and it is sometimes actually incredibly boring, nomadder how interesting the concept is. It goes up and down like that, some ups ( Artificial lightning, silmply amazing) some downs (stargate, so, so boring). If all the tracks had been lgood as the first it would have been a hell of an album, now it falls somewhere in between. 6/10
wax tracks records
Doubting thomas was the sideproject of Cevin Key and Dwayne goettel of Skinny puppy so the expectations were definetly high. The music gathers a lots of adcvanced heavy drumming calm melodies and sounds and mainly, a mass of voice samples that holds the album upand makes it an excellent one. All song material is perhaps not good enough on its own, but constantly the voice samples gives them life, and when the song material is good it becomes Very good.Songs like "father dont cry" "the run" ore "come in piece" are simply excellent.Proof once again for these masters place among the top musicians in the world. 8/10
Drywall: Work the dumb oracle. Irs records
Stan ridgeway is some kind of a blues guitarist and this is his attemptof making a techno industrial project.On some tracks it works tex the cut up Hell in the handbasket or Big american problem that seems to have been made by a keyboard preset, buton the rest he stays faithfull to his usuall music, except for some keyboard tunes and a few samples.The melodies are allright if youre in to that kind of music but halfway even they tend to get weak. Amazing lyrics however but it doesnt hold the album up. 2/10
Empirion: Advaced Technology CD Wanted/Xl recordings
With Kraftwerk, Front 242, Meat beat, and Cabaret Voltaire on top of their list, what you
would excpect would probably be a rather conventional body project, but instead this english
group take those influences and use them to make some very good techno. The influnces are
there and materialase themselfs in the songs so that the album become somekind of
body/industrial techno. Sometimes the body influnces are very clear and sometimes it ranges
more into a kraftwerk or an industrial style. It suns quite fresh to come from the over influated
techno scene and the fatc is that is indeed a very good album. 8/10
Epilepsy: Rozois. cd Paragoric
Epilepsy has been marketed as a cross between doom, industrial and metal, but in reality only a few tracks have any doom influences, most are just really fast and agressive metal with samples repeated guitars, drummachines and a few industrial sounds.Sadly its only the doom tracks that are really good, the vocals arent very pleasant and the musics to boring.Sounds rather innovative though, if they would try to work on their vocals a bit, write some better songs and shape up the really bad production this could get somewhere. 4/10
Exoskeleton Cd Possesive Blindfold Recordings
Possesive blindfold has done a very good job collecting the cream of the dark electro/power industrial scene. Although working with a lot of not so famous names this compilation holds a surprisingly high standard, and the truth is that the only song that doesnt hold the standard is Dives weak "dark room". I´,m actually very positively surprised by this, i had since long lost all hope for the dark electro scene, they usually have great trouble using anything but klichees and a macho attitude but this perhaps calls for a giving it a new shot. It shows very well all the steps from dark electro to power industrial, although in the later, Ant zen records does dominate a little to much. Shows some hope for the future. 8/10