Antigen Shift is an act I already encountered on a few compilations and on the split cd with Detritus, on the Fleshmadeword (now Immanence) label. These releases learnt me that Antigen Shift, the project of Canadian Nick Theriault, makes quite noisy industrial, which is not very accessible, with difficult structures. This new album on Frozen Empire, his official debut cd, is no exception to that. Although it is quite harsh and rhythmic, there are not many straightforward tracks very suited for a dancefloor audience, although I feel that this album is slightly easier to digest than his previous work. A few songs though are rather dense and distorted, forming a wall of reverberating sound.
The opening track, ‘Fragmented V2’, directly sets the tone with some very dark ambient sounds, combined with some harsh noise elements and many dissonant details in the background. An estranging and interesting start. ‘Lunar’ is more rhythmic in nature, a fine monotonous track which works rather ritual, gaining in intensity towards the end. Other highlights for me are ‘Inhibitor’ and ‘Between two worlds’. At the album we find three remixes by well-known industrial acts armvred, Iszoloscope and Cdatakill, as a nice bonus. Especially the Iszoloscope contribution is to my liking, perhaps the most danceable piece on the album.
There is quite some variation and energy on the album, and the sound is full and rich. What I like a lot is the combination of densier rhythmic noise parts and more spacious, almost melodic textured layers. Most compositions are very dynamic, with waves of sound which gain in strength and then slow down again. Sweaty percussion meats frozen atmospheres. It takes me some time to really get into this album, but I begin to appreciate ‘Implicit Structures’ more and more.
