Engine (WaxTrax!/TVT)
by Lex Marburger
Chicago industrial lifts its head and sniffs around. Die Warzau‘s Engine (Wax Trax/TVT) prowls the studio in search of things to strike and infiltrates the computers in order to create loops that twist and veer into the dark asphalt damp with motor oil and bodily fluids. At times they can be Rise Robots Rise on PCP and downers, at times a shiny metal beast, a musical “Tetsuo: The Iron Man.” Voices rise out of the mix, clean and powerful, spewing forth distorted diatribes on the state of the union.
Die Warzau had the good sense to mix live music in with samples (I know that’s common now, but some people still don’t get it), giving Engine the fullness it deserves, and makes sure nothing runs like clockwork. “Missing It” and “Muck” smell out old scars in your psyche and set up camp. They pick at the whitened flesh, relishing the crimson trickle as they explore your fears and forgotten pain. Then they approach you from the other side with “Grounded,” an acoustic piano in a factory with a saxophone which cries out in the dark. They slide in through your ear and worm their way into your heart, the ominous creaking and groaning from dark corners turning your eyes wide, your fingers start shaking, and you become vulnerable to anything. So they tear you apart with “Heroin A.D.,” a slow groove that makes you scream to the sky as you reach for the Scotch and pull back a throat-tearing swallow.
Thinking to numb your mind, you swallow again, but the guitar scares you so badly you drop the bottle. Glass covers the floor, invisible daggers curving up to gently slide into your flesh. “Pughead (bad acid animals)” is that glass, a clandestine shard of sinister intentions giving you the sweet pain of laceration, the alcohol mixing with your blood on the floor, a pool of amber and crimson. “Shakespeare” crushes your body in a military stomp, heavy boots grinding your bones together, showing no mercy as Die Warzau brands your flesh with “America,” a sound collage that scars your mind and leaves you for dead.