Censor – Empire holds down

This is an album that really travels the borders of many different musical styles: heavily drum’n’bass influenced industrial, with some powernoise, some hardcore, some orchestral music, indeed totally eclectic. And an eclectic style that works very well, especially on the first four tracks of this album.

Tracks that describe urban descent in anonymity, dark, gloomy, sometimes fast and loud, sometimes slow and disturbing.. rhythms that attract attention are orchestrated with beautiful melodies that slowly change into something that hunts the listener. Feel like you are chased around in a big impressive city, feel harassed even. Yes this is impressive indeed.

But after these first excellent four tracks, the next six just miss that little bit that makes them really special, that move you to a point you just can’t describe what you are feeling. This six tracks still travel the boundaries between musical styles, still are quite good, but just lack that last spark to really work like the first four tracks, and especially the title track, did.

The last four tracks on this album are remixes, done by Displacer, DJ Hidden, Needle Sharing and Larvae. They all know to create a truly new version of the track they chose to remix. Especially the remix of “When 4 is 3” by Larvae deserves special mentioning, a great job indeed and a worthy last track of this impressive debut album. An album that probably works best for those who like experimental drum ‘n’ bass and industrial.

artist: Censor
label: Hive Records
details: 2004, 14 tracks