Along with live drummer and keyboard player 2nd Face is primarily the project of German “sound magician” Vincent Uhlig and he has been solidifying the successor album to 2017 release ‘Nemesis’ over the last 5-years. Not having heard the project before it was the fact that we are told this should be the sort of music favoured by fans of Skinny Puppy that immediately drew me to it. That is pretty much spot on both musically and vocally as comparatively there is plenty here reminiscent of the latter era of the industrial heavyweights as well as recent solo music by ohGr. I have to admit throwing Tool into the similarity mix as well is completely wide of the mark but that is something I was not complaining about as like many, they bore me rigid.
We are not only in safe hands here sticking to electronica, EBM and industrial genres but also this sounds fantastic, not surprising really coming from someone who ‘finished his degree at the School of Audio Engineering with honours.’ Over an hour’s worth of music and 10 tracks it’s suggested that headphone listening will bring the best out of this recording and indeed it does. There’s no problems letting it warp through you as you sit next to speakers either and let the constant ‘motion in flux’ beat like a heart through your ribcage. It’s quite a dark listen and thematically it focuses on the human mind which has been disrupted by “collectively opting for (social) media self-hypnosis in the face of climate change and war.”
The melody of opener ‘Momentum’ quickly wraps itself around you as you acclimatise yourself to the weird and wonderful sounds and beats of the electronic components. Vocals are perfectly aligned and are clean and distinct as everything else twists and turns around them. Bass tones are particularly deep and oft quite dub-laden breezing out the speakers like a thick gust of wind. Bleeps and pulsating rhythms thrust themselves at you and the futuristic sound is dystopian in construct. As the album continues it throbs and strobes but it becomes apparent that ramping up the BPM count is not the modus-operandi here. The songs are pretty much all dark swaying, sinuous snake-charmers in effect. There’s a Numanoid vibe about ‘Formula Extinction’ as well as beats that will be embraced by fans of the authentic forerunners of the scene such as FLA and KMFDM. Songs are in no rush but sprawl out quite deliciously, more inclined to caress your inner ear than destroying your ear-drum with harsher noise frequencies.
Not only is it electronic music for the body, it will have things firing off in your brain too due to its multi-layered approach and sounds that seem designed to spark off your cerebral cortex. Although not an album particularly for track by track dissection there are plenty of these shapes and soundscapes to pleasurably indulge yourself in at every point of the recording as it gives you a thick aural workout. From the thick, lead-lined, heavy hit of ‘Mydriasis’ which is bound get your eyes and everything else dilating, to the bubbling under the surface, strange and alien whooshes of ‘life(l)over,’ you cannot help being swept along with the flow.
utOpium is a bit of an addictive drug, one listen and I was hooked as it unlocked such a huge variety of sounds in the living room. Witnessing it in a club however must take it to a whole other level, something I would certainly be keen to experience. If all this is not enough apparently there is a version with a bonus CD dystOpium with 6 extra demo tracks. However you choose to approach this, it’s all good, so give your ears a treat at the following links.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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