In Strict Confidence

Face the Fear (Metropolis)
by Paul Lee

I’m surrounded by cold, hard pieces of technology and their austere, icy, cathode ray stares. Outside the window loom steely monoliths of gray granite, while inside, machines shriek and shudder, spitting out meaningless facts and figures. The soundtrack to this urban technologically-enhanced hell is the deliciously chilly Face The Fear by Germanic electro-industrial duo In Strict Confidence. For an album with such bleak and often harsh lyrics, In Strict Confidence are a surprisingly smooth sounding unit, leaning towards the more melancholy and atmospheric end of the electro-spectrum. “Empire” opens the disc with eerie soundbites of a news report about a UFO sighting, the sound of a heart rate monitor, and a voice croaking “Release me,” augmented by some peculiar electronic noises. Singer Dennis Osterman (actually, it could be his cohort Jorg Schelte, they don’t say) growls his way through most of the songs, except for the ambient, instrumental track “Engel Mit Feuer Und Schwert.” There’s even a darkly melodic song entitled “Industrial Love” about our passion for and obsession with technology. The only harsh song is the quasi-instrumental “Room 101,” an experimental industrial track with loads of electronic distortion and distorted vocals. Eighty percent of Face The Fear is in English, but for the portion that’s in German, I truly wish I knew the language.
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