Electro Industrial Assassins
(Cleopatra)
by Scott Hefflon
With this 15-song compilation of Hard recording artists, all styles are in attendance. Many bands are leaders of the European electronic movement, while others are virtually unknown in the States. Birmingham 6 starts Electro Industrial Assassins (Cleopatra) off on the right stomping foot. A solid, KMFDM-esque guitar chug and distorted vocals set the stage for the onslaught to follow. Psychopomps check in next with a gloriously dark seven-minute track that slowly pulls the short hairs from the back of your neck. French newcomers Brain Leisure submit a throbbing song filled with rumbling undertones and keyboard racing. Lights of Euphoria, with guest vocals from Godheads, plod through nightmare landscapes with clanking metal objects and soaring synth effects. Suiciety storm through the speakers like an enraged cyberbat out of hell. Hard electronics and heavily distorted vocals scream their bloody war cry that, to these ears, could use the crunch of a guitar or two to strengthen its voice.
Good Courage side project, Neotek, checks in with a slamming techno song with a surprisingly dippy keyboard chorus. Sounds frighteningly like A-Ha. (Slamming to A-Ha, what a concept.) Discovering that T.H.D. is from Pennsylvania was a pleasant surprise. More straight electronic than vocal, they didn’t set new industry standards, but they used some subtle samples behind the dancing beats. After a soothing intro, Godheads plod through a tough rebel anthem supported by powerchords, female backing vox, and percussive clanks, bleeps and smashes. If the song didn’t sound so restrained, this would be a monumental band.
Sphere Lazza scream from inside machines and give a good haunting introduction to full scale works soon to be on 5th Column and Hard. Stiff Miner got stiffed. Their track got left on the tail end of the previous song. Oops. They’ve a different approach. It sounds like a merry-go-round in hell, going slowly, comically, backwards. Disconcerting, to say the least, with its chorus of demonic Bubblethunderbeasts, bobbing like pistons in molasses and singing joyously about tearing people limb from limb. Techno speedfreaks Digital Factor explode with industrial thrash mayhem similar to Front Line Assembly. Mountains of guitar, pulsating drums, a slampit chorus… oh yeah, I like these guys. Godheads’ side project Mind Resuscitate clank away with an uptempo, danceable, accessible vibe. Good Courage slide in with a laid back, Depeche Mode-kinda feeling song. Like a pleasant Valium waltz, it contrasts the other heavier, guitar-oriented material. While this track by Luc Van Acker is taken from his 1980 debut (and sounds it), this prolific gent (whose credits include Ministry, RevCo, and Shreikback) is recording a new solo album. The final track, by Denmark cyberpunk Max M rounds out the compilation with its sci-fi soundtrack quality and thrusting techno beats. As a whole, the 60-minute compilation begins to blur together, but jagged bursts of industrial guitar lacerate your drifting ears and locate your attention in the cross-hairs where it belongs.
