IRM – Virgin Mind

IRM is one of these almost founding acts of the Cold Meat Industry label. Being there from the start, it is not often that Martin Bladh en Erik Jarl come together to produce new work. In fact it has been five years since “Oedipus Dethroned”, their last album. The music on this cd is more intimate and darker then on their former releases, less noisy…

V/A – The Fixx: an electronic tribute

The Fixx is one of those new-wave bands that has had quite some succes in the US, but never really made it in Europe, even though they hail from London. Where “Saved by Zero” their 1983 single is probably still their greatest hit, they are still active and tour the US several times a year.
This however seems to be only the first tribute-cd for The Fixx…

Babyflesh – New wave of cynicism

Babyflesh is the only Norwegian death-industrial act, at least according to it’s label Vendlus. And I have to admit, I can’t come up with any other act, so it might actually be true. Even though there are a lot of death-industrial acts from Scandinavia, Babyflesh may very well be the first from Norway. New wave of cynicism is the second release by Babyflesh…

Things Outside The Skin – You Knew It All Along

Things Outside The Skin is an aggro-tech industrial band (at least that is what they call themselves) from Brooklyn, NY. You knew it all along is the third full-length release from the gentlemen. As I’m not aquainted with the old material, I can’t compare to that…

Carlo Spera & Stereonoise – Sto Correndo

Carlo Spera & Stereonoise is a project started by Carlos Porr? in 2003 aiming to create music that is not anchored in time, but can be listened to in the future as well. To reach this, the trio behind this project merges many different musical styles into a sound that is like a strange kind of electronic jazz…

Quelles Paroles – various demo`s

Contrary to what one would expect Quelles Paroles is not a French, but a Swedish band. Their music is easiest described as synthpop, but of course there is more to it. What I received from QP is close to all the material they have. And the material did more than just surprise me, I can say. It is very varied, with some really good tracks…

New Risen Throne / Cruel Harvest – Shadows Over Humanity

A storm welcomes the listener, voices shouting from afar, not to be understood, but to create a vision. A vision of people desperately trying to finish whatever it is they are doing in this weather, craving to go home, but not able to, trapped. This storm lasts 11 minutes and sets the mood for the whole split-cd. New Risen Throne opens up with three tracks…

Supreme Court – Yell it out

Supreme Court is a side-project of Kay Härtel, who is best known as the mastermind behind Davantage. “Yell it out” is the second CD of Supreme Court, bringing 55 minutes of EBM to the listener. The album-title explains itself right away when I start reading through the lyrics…

Bloody Mary – Blood ’n Roll

A new label, specifically set up to give better deals for young bands in the metal scene. An independent label that wants to spread metal to the world, set up by Paul Beavis and Tim Fraser (former manager of Christian Death and Theatres Des Vampires). They were later joined by Dave Pybus (formerly working for Peaceville, but better known as ex-axeman with Cradle Of Filth)…

V/A – Fuck

Hive Records is specialising in dark electronic music. Of course this still describes a broad range of music, from dark ambient to power electronics to idm. But Hive does indeed cover this whole range, from trippy to harsh. Even though the title and cover of this compilation will have you believe otherwise, this compilation-cd does cover the same range of music…

Dekad – Sin_Lab

Dekad is a French trio that is responsible for this debut album filled with synthpop, mixed with some EBM and some new-wave. The listener is welcomed with a strange start indeed, some weird bleeps, that loop in such a way that one can start doubting if the cd isn’t skipping. But after almost 30 seconds the first track really kicks in and all doubts are immediately swept away…

Diorama – Amaroid

It’s been a while since “The Art of Creating Confused Spirits” was released, but Torben Wendt proves it was worth waiting. Melodic synth-songs that are so driven that you just have to put everything else away while listening to this album. You just want to dance along, cry along with the album.. feel what emotion there is in yourself…

Richter – Cost of living

Richter are Lizz Andrykew and Jack. They occasionaly get assistance on guitar by Dean Johnston and Craig Moffitt. Together they are responsible for this album “Cost Of Living”, the self-released debut album. On this album one will get synthpop the way it is meant to be…

Hamre, Karsten – Broken Whispers

Karsten Hamre is an allround artist (photo, video, music) who is active in several projects like Arcane Art en Penitent for several years already. Still this is only his first solo-album. It’s an album full of electronic dark ambient that reaches beyond the borders of this description. Experimental in its roots the music somehow doesn’t escape the “heard this before” stage…

Dive – Behind the Sun

Dirk Ivens is not exactly unknown. As one of the founding members of The Klinik, but also as part of Sonar and many other projects his name got associated with good dark electronic music. Another project that added to his fame is his solo-project Dive. Talking about this project immediately brings us to the newest Dive-release “Behind The Sun”, the first one that is not a solo-album anymore…

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…

Battery Cage – Product

A new release on a new label… then again the first offering of this label is an oldie already, not sounding like time got up with it though. Battery Cage recorded this album in the period upto 1998, when it was scheduled to be released…

V/A – United Vol. I

United vol. 1 is the first NoiTekk sampler, uniting not only the NoiTekk acts, but also some befriended acts of the label. But the album is not only about music, it is also about the statement the label wants to give to the listeners, in short: “open your mind and realize reality”…

Prospero – Spreading the infection

Prospero is a Toronto based industrial dj and the man behind sub.session.media. Spreading The Infection is his first release (after a limited CDR in 2003) and to most people this will be the first they ever hear from him, though he has contributed tracks to several compilations allready. On this 2CD set Prospero presents many musical styles to the listener…

Habeeb – Il Cancello Della Morte

It seems to become the new format of cd-packaging, the A5 DVD-box. And where this brings some problems with storage, it also creates room for more detailed artwork. Not exactly back in time to the vinyl album-sleeve, but it does look better, that much is for sure. However it still is all about the music of course. Habeeb is a project of L…