There is no doubt in my mind: this is the best album of 1996,
all genres. Really. All genres. I kid you not. It's a lot better than
Dreams Of A Cryotank, more mature
and well-produced; every little noise is just in place, every tiny
machine is tuned perfectly, the vocals are a lot better and stronger, the
distortion is just right everywhere. And there are no guitars anywhere.
What to call it? Umm...
EBM/industrial/techno/synthpop/jungle-house/electro/acid/goth/trance....?
It's fast, it's slow, it's heavy, it's dreamy, it's stomping, it's bouncy, it's
melodic, it's monotonous, it's danceable, it's relaxing... it's energetic.
And it's very, very good. It's the truth.
The album starts off with a crazy noise loop, which turns into a rhythm,
which turns into 'Feedback'. Over this noise loop comes an acidy 303-ish line
and later the deep dark melodic vocals. Then the beat. Then no vocals. Then vocals
again. Then the song actually starts and leaps into a pleasing chorus which
breaks off and leaves only the acid line. And then the beat comes back.
And the track keeps changing this way throughout its entire length; at times
merely a trancey acid line, other times it's a complete chorus with the whole
packet. Then the track bleeps out and fades.
And then, 'Stalker' comes in and steals the show. It's like a goth/EBM/synthpop
song with a sampled drumloop for a beat. This beat is occasionally c-c-c-u-t-t-ttt
u-u-p-p-ppp in the most pleasing way, as a sort of breakbeat. Another very pleasing
break is the single distorted acid synth riff, not unlike Chemical Brothers,
Hardfloor or any other techno outfit. And then, back to the pop song. Or EBM,
whichever way you want it. It's definitely one of the strongest songs on this
album.
'Figurehead' is quite a bit longer than the plain
version, and the instrumental excesses are quite trancey, repetative yet
constantly changing. The build-ups towards the vocal explosion is great.
There's just one little blippy break from the plain version that I'm missing,
but that would probably spoil the trance effect.
'Phoenix' comes as a release after the intense 'Figurehead'; it's rather slow,
but by no means powerless. The distorted noises are bleeping away, and the bassdrums
are thundering. The bassline growls and suggests that there's a lot more power at
hand than what's used at the moment, so beware. The tension builds after the
relatively mellow intro.
'Slowmotion' is more of an honest slower track and not as full of restrained
power. The beat is a funky beefed-up hip-hop type drumloop, with some slow
filter sweeps on top, together with an almost
NIN-ish synth lead. The vocals
go from the relaxed to the screaming, not unlike
Andrew Eldritch at times.
'Tabula Rasa' starts off rather slowly as well, but soon the beat is doubled
to a more up-tempo rhythm, but it's a bit hard to get a grip on the actual rhythm
in the verse. It all becomes clear in the melodic chorus, though. An ascending
arpeggio pattern flows through almost the entire song, somewhere between blippy
and klinky.
'Storm' is just what it claims to be. It's based around a hard chaotic
jungle-house type beat, but in truth it's actually an EBM song. The mix of the
two works very well indeed, and the occasional drum break reveals the pure
FLA-type EBM bassline. How someone can keep
themselves from bouncing from wall to wall after that I cannot fathom. Pure energy.
And then when the lone drumloop is thundering away after the chorus, my feet beg
for mercy. Perhaps it's a good thing that it's only 5:25 long.
After the dance-till-you-drop assault of 'Storm', the meditative rhythm of
'Flux' allows me to relax again and catch my breath. It too is in effect an EBM
track, but the quirky rhythm make it seem slow in spite of this. That is, until
the beat is doubled in the same fashion as 'Tabula Rasa'. But the vocals remain
reasonably relaxed, so it never picks up too much pace. The bassline isn't
entirely unlike something that And One could come
up with at their EBM-ier moments, rather fast and electronic. Now, 10:41 may seem
like an awfully long track, but the actual song isn't more than perhaps five or six
minutes; the rest is almost exclusively a slow rhythmic loop. Imagine a sound that
you would get if you had tons of electronic gear connected to an amp, and that someone
accidently unplugged the wrong wire. The sound that could be the effect of this
is the main part of the loop, which mutates along the way.
So, even if it's a very diverse album, it never loses the album feel to it; it's
very coherent without being repetative. Now, there are very few albums that I say
this about, but this one really deserves it: this - is - one - amazing - album.
Definitely one of my all-time favourites. Go buy it.
