Required philosophical musing opening: In the modern world, does the concept of a ‘side project’ even mean what it used to? I mean the black metal scene is practically built on side projects, same with death, grind etc. So is it only mainstream bands where a side project even means anything other than ‘for real world reasons the other band can’t get together so I’m bored/had an idea for something different in the down time and doing this instead’ Answers in paint on a tortoise’s shell to the usual addy.
Relevance? Well this is Andy (Therapy?) Cairns industrial side project, alongside some gents who I do apologise to (Jason Stoll (Mugstar, KLAMP, Sex Swing), Wayne Adams (Death Pedals, Big Lad, Petbrick) and Adam Betts (Three Trapped Tigers, Goldie, Squarepusher….two of which I do know of) who appear to otherwise be way outside my area of vague knowledge. But it suggests they aren’t averse to bouncing between projects.
I had a little trepidation with this I admit but I love a good bit of industrial. Just haven’t heard much for seemingly an age… and I was kinda worried that it might..
…well, opener, the wonderfully titled ‘Thoughts And Prayers (Mean Nothing)’ opens with heavy keyboard scree and then the guitar riff that sounds….well to me like Therapy? With an industrial production over the top. Exactly what I had feared. Intense, certainly and direct but…well it was what I predicted and if I predicted it, it must be obvious. For me a shaky start…
But!
Then second track ‘Reality Crash’ slowly and menacingly winds up. There’s the industrial rhythm, the harsh and dipping into dark melody and then the vocals…. well if you can imagine an industrial version of ‘Dopethrone’ period Electric Wizard? Oh yeah. There we are. It stomps, head down without deviation as a heavy psyche guitar winds around it and jerks odd sounds out of the shadows like jump scares. This is music to suck the light out of the room and the voice sounds like someone trapped inside your head. Superb.
‘Rot’ thankfully is pretty much in the same vein as ‘Reality…’ The electronics hiss and buzz and the psyche laden guitar scribbles obscenities on the walls. The vocals start off almost as a croon before being wrenched back into torment. It kind of coalesces into something like NIN on a bad trip with Stabbing Westward and Electric Wizard reading the map. Yes that is a very good thing.
‘Total Protonic Reversal’ is a more understated affair. The music has touches of some dark ambient, like a more jagged Dim Lights, before suddenly and briefly bursting into a stomp. And back again This is not ‘verse chorus verse’ music so check that expectation at the door. This is like watching a grim documentary on grainy VHS, voices calling almost at random and the music occasionally hitting a thunderous groove before the tracking pulls it back.
And then there’s ‘Bring Home The Motherlode, Barry’. Space rock sounds, the undercurrent of some dystopian background. Semi spoken/shouted vocals interrupt and then the riff, monomaniacal and unfaltering, thumps down. That word ‘psyche’ once more screams through my brain – it’s brain jarring, like someone had hold of my head and is just squeezing…. It just drills on and on for almost nine minutes to the point even the quiet moments hurt and… you really don’t want it to stop. This is industrial/stoner/psyche on a huge nod. Monster Magnet hooked up to the computer and yanking on the spine of god. Honest, live this would blow out walls and disintegrate souls. This is just bloody marvellous. A trip to be sure.
‘Hellbent On Happiness’ is more like the opening track; driving riff but somehow, perhaps after ‘…Barry’ works its nasty quick double punches on me better and it may sound counter intuitive but the fact it doesn’t break out into a standard song mode makes it work. ‘The Dead Drop’ is a weird whisper at first, some great up front bass work and eerie electronica pushes into a trance like, goth tinged world of smog and echo.
‘Army Of Me’ finishes us off. Rhythmic and disjointed, almost poppy compared to the preceding music with bursts of an almost Arcturus feel in the drumming and a chaotic approach to its presence.
While I still have a weird problem with the opening track, you have to hand it to these guys. This is an album of men on a mission. It is indeed a sharp kick up the arse for formulaic, derivative, dull industrial which I had basically written off. At its most skullfucking best ‘Supercluster’ is the psyched out insanity of earlier Electric Wizard uploaded through a NIN, Monster Magnet and Ministry super AI and refusing to conform to an easy shape and style. There are no hooks, no tunes to hum, there is just the deluge of sound and riff and tortured voices intent on pulling the world into their gravity well.
Pretty darned fantastic.
Barry? Can you hear me Barry….???! Barry!!!?
(8.5/10 Gizmo)
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