Terminal Sect

Gun Worship (None of the Above)
by Karl Geising

For those of you who missed the boat, Terminal Sect are an industrial band straight out of the late ’80s, a deviant of the Front 24/Skinny Puppy era before Wax Trax! bands learned to shut up and play their guitars. This EP is mostly different remixes of “Gun Worship” plus three other songs. The remixes are by well-known industrial heavies such as KMFDM’s En Esch and Controlled Bleeding’s Chris Moriarty. As is usually the case, the remixes say more about the person doing the remix than about the song in question. The two songs by En Esch strip away most of the complexity, leaving dub-influences and bass lines throbbing under sporadic noise and/or horn blasts. Chris Moriarty adds more fuzzbox to the disco, sublimating melody and harmony to Musique Concrete textures of rhythmic sounds.

Coin Of The Realm accentuates the vocals, messing them up to become less oral and more instrumental. But all of the remixes eventually succumb to the tyranny of the beat – complete with the alarm-clock hi-hats and downbeat kickdrums. Despite my innate disposition against “ambient” music, I’d have to say that the best moments on this EP are the ones without overt rhythm: the four-minute intro to John Bergin’s “Metal Idol Born,” and the final two minutes of the surprisingly melodic “Where Angels Fall.” This band is 10 times better when liberated from the dance floor.