Acumen Nation

More Human Heart (Conscience)
by Chris Best

Acumen’s 1995 debut, Transmissions From Eville , was a fairly boring listen for me. Aside from “Gun Lover,” all the songs were two-dimensional imitations of each other. Because of this mediocre first effort, I ignored their second album. In the meantime, since that second album, they’ve been almost sued by another band with rights on the name, hence the new moniker “Acumen Nation.” All gossip aside, these guys have it going on now!

In addition to the traditional rip-snortin’ industrial juggernauts that are their standard fare, are songs with (gasp) real drums (without sequenced back-ups beats) that aren’t even industrial. No, not all the dirgy rock tunes work well (the drums sound weak by themselves), but dammit, that means that out of eleven songs, there are only three bad tracks. To the fine folks of Acumen Nation, I take back all the slanderous jokes I’ve made about your music and for calling you a bunch of “talentless, metal dorks, who can only dream of hanging out with the gamers in High School.” Folks, if you like the industrial music like I do, you’ll want to go get this… just don’t buy Transmissions From Eville , tape the song “Gun Lover” from your music geek buddy who actually paid the $15 for it.