Squid, who is behind this compilation, is an active dj in the industrial scene around Toronto, Canada. As a creative mind, he also writes and it is a story he wrote, a story about mental apocalypse, that inspires this compilation. No wonder this story, completed with artworks, is part of the nice 16 page booklet…
Thee Hyphen – Consolidated Green

Boredom Records is a French label that keeps on surprising me with quality releases. No high quantity of albums, but just releases that are worth releasing to the public. Their last release is Thee Hyphen’s album Consolidated Green. Thee Hyphen is the solo project of U-0176, who is best known for his work with Celluloid…
V/A – The Nein raid musik compilation 01

Nein Records is an American label that started in 2003. They promote independent RAID music. RAID stands for Rhythm Intelligent Analog Distorted music. A nice description that leaves enough room for all that is available on this disc. The 15 tracks come from 12 different acts and reveal what we can expect from this label…
Sulphur – Der Fluch Des Lebens

Darkambient, industrial soundscapes have the tendency to drag the listener away from this world into a much darker one, where they will have the chance to look around and see all kinds of nightmares in desolate lands. This seems to be what Sulphur is trying to reach as well, but most of the time fails to accomplish…
V/A – Sin #6

When one starts listening to this cd, the first thing one will hear is a slightly pulsating high beeping noise, soon a lower more constant tone is added.. fades away, comes back again.. Welcome to the world of Some Asian Female Body Builders. A world in wich this project from Spain tries to describe an Asian Female Body Builder (Satomi Terauchi in this case) with noise tracks…
Echo US – S/T

Where to start a review of an album that describes a genre of its own? That gives a new experimental impulse to electro as well as progressive rock? Well, let me start with saying that I might not be the right person to review this album, as progrock is not my field. But then again, that does not tell you a lot about this album, so let’s just start by describing the man behind the project…
My Sixth Shadow – Love-Fading Innocence

Italy-based My Sixth Shadow releases their first full-length album (two e.p. releases went before this one) to the masses. The six men give us a taste of what they mean with New Wave Of Gothic Rock, a description that actually fits the music quite neatly, except for the missing link to metal…
Last Dance, The – Reflections Of Rage

The latest album by The Last Dance is only partially by The Last Dance themselves. 3 out of the 15 tracks are done by this progressive darkwave band, the other tracks are old The Last Dance tracks, mainly from the “Whispers in rage” album. These tracks are remixed or even rerecorded by artists like L’Ame Immortelle, Corvus Corax and CyrusRex (Skinny Puppy)…
XP8 – Forgive

XP8’s debut album has already reached the ears of many. Many DJ’s played one or more tracks from this album in their sets. And they did so for good reason. Even though the mastering of this album isn’t exactly flawless, it is a great album with very good songs. It is this mastering and further “total lack of professionality” that made XP8 decide to leave Black Flames Records after this album…
Crüxshadows, the – Fortress In Flames

To me The Crüxshadows have always been a live band, that couldn’t get the energy they spread during a show (be it for a packed stadium or for a small crowd in a small pub) onto cd. And this CD, that basicly is an EP with three new songs and twelve remixes, doesn’t change a bit about this…
Amateur God – Around the corners of our minds

“If there is a God, then we have to deal with a very unprofessional one.” This thought, of Blaz Erzetic, is where the name Amateur God hails from. The solo-project started out as dark ambient, but on this album it has altered its course to a more pop-oriented sound…
Bahntier – Revulsive

Italy-based Stefano Rossello is :Bahntier//, a project that moved from ambient sounds, when it started in 1999, to more percussive, industrial sounds. With this move the project seems to have done a good thing. Though I don’t know their ambient work, this industrial work tastes like more. It is experimental, but doesn’t loose sight of the song…
Nebula-H – H2O

10 tracks that immediately make you want to dance and a remix of one of those songs is what the new album by the Belgian act Nebula-H has to offer. This is their second album and it really builds upon their debut album “H” and goes on from there…
Mephisto Waltz – Insidious

Nostalgia is the first feeling I get when I listen to Insidious, the new album by Mephisto Waltz. Death rock, classic goth-rock, gothic ethereal punk, no matter how you call it, it reminds of the gothic origins at the beginning of the 1980s. But this album is so much more…
Blue Birds Refuse To Fly – Anapteroma

After an obsolete intro with “heavenly” female voices, this album opens with a track that tricks the listener into believing it’s an old-style darkwave album that is spinning. It isn’t until the next track ‘Lacrimasa Di Balena II – The Revenge’ that the listener hears the futurepop that fills most of the album…
Vectorscope – Monitoring The Blind

11 tracks recorded between January 1999 and August 2001, but only released in 2004. Dark industrial soundscapes fill my room, that seems to be so much spacier for the time this disc is running…
Last Influence Of Brain – Illusions And Reality

Last Influence Of Brain is a trio hailing from Slovakia. The dark country reflects in their dark-electro. With influences of bands like Leatherstrip and Front Line Assembly the bandmembers know what they are doing. This is their first release and though it has its flaws they for sure are a promising new band…
Davantage – Unholy

Seven new tracks and six remixes is what davaNtage offer us on this EP. Over one hour of (mostly) danceable electro is what the listener of this album becomes. After the boring first track, title track Unholy revenges this first track in a splendid way. From this point on, the new tracks on this EP keep on hammering into your ears in a very nice way…
VidnaObmana – Legacy

VidnaObmana is a well-known name in the darkambient world. He has now finished his Dante-trilogy with this work and will take some time off to reflect upon his work, scheduling no new events untill 2007. But he has left us with quite a work to fill this time with. Legacy is an album that you can´t stop listening too. Hearing new things every time you listen to it…