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I have been remiss in my music listening duties. I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos, and for some reason reading without musical accompaniment. I've also had a horrible bout of insomnia, which makes me less motivated to do anything than I would be if I had a good night's sleep behind me.

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Droid - Droid

Droid are an L.A. metal band who are signed to Korn's guitarist's vanity imprint record label. Their bass player is the former lead singer/rhythm guitarist of The Deadlights, who were one of my favourite one-off bands of the Nü-Metal era. The problem with Droid is that they don't seem to have any of the variety, melody, or intelligence of the former band. If You are down with forty-six minutes of homogeneous screamy metal then by all means listen to Droid. But if you prefer a more dynamic sound in your heavy music this might not be quite the thing for you.



KMFDM / My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Naïve/The Days of Swine & Roses (single)

Back in the day there was a magical record label named WAX TRAX!. The WAX TRAX! artist were a tight knit group of Chicago-based industrial artists. There was a strong thread of performance art, and collaboration among the WAX TRAX! family. The side project between TKK and KMFDM was Excessive Force. In 1991 the album Conquer Your World was released. The Work that Sascha Konietzko did with Buzz McCoy on that album spawned this split remix single. The TKK remix of "Naïve" isn't that great. It sounds like a funkier, swankier, dirtier version of "Naïve", but it wasn't a great song to begin with, so I think it is more a mater of source material than ineptitude in remixing. "The Days of Swine & Roses" is a great song, and Sascha came in to KMFDM it up. The guitars are a lot harsher, the bass isn't as prevalent, and the song sound a bit more muted than the original, but it is still a good remix, just not as good as the original. Both songs are extended from their original length to 10:00 opuses.



Prince & The Revolution - Purple Rain (soundtrack)

The 80s were great, weren't they? At least the nostalgia of the 80s is great. In the 80s Prince was great, but he didn't really stand up over time, much like this album. "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" still hold up remarkably well, but the rest of the album is very dated. There was a very distinctive sound to New Wave music in 1984, and while the band is tight, and the musicianship is strong this album sounds like 1984. I have never seen the movie Purple Rain, but I'm sure it's a fin picture. At this point, however it is stuck in time, and not timeless like good art really should be.




Portishead - Dummy

Portishead are the second best trip-hop band after Massive Attack. Fortunately both bands are friendly, and they don't even really take up the same market-share. Massive Attack tend to be very outwardly political, and Portishead have a tendency to be introspective and emotional. Back in 1994 it was hard to find a copy of Dummy in the stores, but in the past 14 years Portishead have become a cultural phenomenon. With their new album (Third) debuting at no. 7 on the US billboard chart, and no. 2 in the UK album charts. Aside from having a very strong start Portishead had to travel a long and winding road to get public notice. After being away from the band for ten years the public was finally ready to accept Portishead, which seems like the epitome of ahead of their time to me. The Critical press has already lauded Dummy, and I don't know what I can add. This is a fantastic album, and probably the second best trip-hop album ever released. Again after Mezzanine by Massive Attack. It is down-tempo, and sad, and compelling. The samples come from music from old spy movie soundtracks, and blues and soul records. This is what it sounded like when you let English kids that lived by the sea get ahold of hip-hop music and do their thing.



Marilyn Manson - Eat Me, Drink Me

I got into Marilyn Manson back in 1994 around the first time I heard "Lunchbox". I am always excited when a new MM record is announced. Which means that I am kind of excited about the new MM album that he is going to be recording with Twiggy later this year, even if Steven Baird isn't going to be involved this time. Manson was always best when he was angry about something, and screaming about individuality. When he got depressed and lost his will to live and create that made his music a lot harder to listen to. There is a track on Eat Me, Drink Me that hearkens back to lunchbox by using a very similar guitar riff, and there is a song or two that are loud rockers, but this album suffers like its creator. The music is not the industrial-metal that most of the rest of Manson's back catalog is. The song structures are a lot more traditional, and I blame this mostly on Tim Skold not really wanting to reach into Manson's depressed headspace. The allusions to Alice in Wonderland aren't very helpful to the theme either. This is not a bad album, but it is Manson's worst.

Probably because I just started this thing I'm going to do a daily wrap-up of the albums I listened to today. I don't expect this to last. Though I do expect that I'll continue with the mini-review thing I'm going to do for this.

The Future Sound of London - Accelerator

The First album I listened to this morning was The Future Sound of London's Accelerator. I haven't listened to this album for about two years, but I love FSOL. This was their first album and spawned their biggest "hit" "Papua New Guinea." Which is actually my least favourite song on the album. I really prefer Lifeforms, and especially Dead Cities, but all in all it is a good album for a debut effort. It was recorded at the height of the Acid House movement, but didn't quite have the wonderful soundscapes that FSOL later perfected.



KMFDM - Rules (single)

KMFDM are one of my favourite industrial bands. The Rules single is comprised of three tracks, one unaltered track off of XTORT and two remixes of songs from the same album. All in all it's decent, but if one weren't a huge fan of the band I'd leave it be. It is basically standard fare for 1996 KMFDM. Which is to say that it is pretty much straight up industrial-metal that's heavy on the sampling.



Collide - Chasing the Ghost

Collide's Chasing the Ghost is standard fare early 2000's dark electro. A lost of people categorize them as Industrial, but they are really just standard issue electronic rock with female vocals. It isn't bad, by any means, just not incredibly remarkable. The reason I listened to them was because Amazon put them high on my list of recommendations. There is a cover of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" on the album, but that is really its only stand-out feature.



Pixies - Bossanova

(see below)














Marilyn Manson - Coma White (promo)

I don't remember where I came about this, I probably downloaded it with a bunch of other MM singles. "Coma White" is a great fucking song. The disc itself has the album version of the song, and an acoustic version, that's it. The song is about both drug use, and the troubles of fame. Really the entirety of Mechanical Animals is an extended metaphor for the dangers of celebrity culture told through the guise of drug addiction. It is "Glam-Industrial" at it's best. I am actually more impressed with Apoptygma Berzerk's version of this song than I am with Manson's. I didn't really like this song when I first heard it ten years ago, but it has grown on me over time.



Current 93 - Crooked Crosses for the Nodding God

If you're a fan of neo-folk, or gothic music C93 is a group to get into. This is another of David Tibet's collaborations with the UK industrial underground. Members of Throbbing Gristle, HÖH, Coil et. al provide music, and lyrics to this outing. A lot of songs about rape and a disparaging god. Almost everything by Current 93 is very dark material, and certainly mood music. But I dig it. Then again, I'm really into ambient, shoegaze, post-rock, and experimental noise, which this isn't.



Fugazi - The Argument

Fugazi have always been a mainstay of indie rock, and for good reason. They are the product of the dissolution of several early 80's DC Hardcore bands. The band is known more for their stance on merchandise, and the cost of shows and albums. They are the epitome of indie attitude, literally. The Argument is their best album. It is also their last album. So, maybe I only like it best because it is more accessible than Red Medicine", but so fucking what. Sometimes you want to listen to music because it is well written and pleasant to listen to. I don't always want to listen to dense, or complex fucking sound. This is that album by Fugazi. Ian and Guy have different writing styles, and both of them are well represented on this album. They are a good point and counterpoint of the best aspects of Fugazi.



AFI - Black Sails in the Sunset

Black Sails in the Sunset is the first AFI record that Jade Puget played on. The band's sound became remarkably more sophisticated, and more interesting. This is also the last AFI record that can really be called Hardcore Punk. The Band's themes have always been dark, but this record took them to a different level. The album isn't anywhere near as good as decemberunderground, or Sing the Sorrow, but it is a far cry better than the three albums that came before it. It seemingly took a group of young punks four albums to hit their stride. I think Jade had A LOT to do with their improved sound.



The Daylight Curse - Black and White Memories

Standard-issue Metalcore. There is nothing remarkable about this album. It is listenable for a few tracks, but then you just want to skip the rest of it. It is technically proficient, and loud, and heavy, but who fucking cares, it gets grating after six minutes. I'd rather listen to an Evergreen Terrace album.




Nine Inch Nails - Fixed (EP)

Fixed is the remix record to NIN's best release. Every song on Broken was absolutely fucking brutal. The problem is that the remixes didn't keep with the spirit of the originals. Sure the remixes on this EP were created by Coil, and J.G. Thirwell (aka Foetus), but they're just not as heavy. That being said, I really like the canonical release of Fixed. The songs are industrial, they are dark, they are experimental, they are grating, and they are electronic. 1992 was several years before Trent Reznor signed Coil to Nothing records, but it was the first time he worked with them in an artistic fashion. With Songs like "Screaming Slave" (a remix of "last"), and "Fist Fuck" (a remix of "Wish") this is not for the feint of heart, but is a must-have for fans of industrial music. The remixes left off of the EP were left for good reason. Butch Vig remixed "Wish" and missed the entire point of the song, and Paul Kendall remixed "Happiness in Slavery" to slightly better effect.


Toad the Wet Sprocket - Acoustic Dance Party (EP)

Toad the Wet Sprocket were a pussy sort-of-rock band from the 90's. Glenn Phillips wrote songs that, I assume, were intended to make girls take their panties off. I suppose there's nothing wrong with writing songs to get pussy, but I'm not really into vag-rock. It's just... It is missing something essential. There is a certain heart that can be felt in music that comes from an artistic place. This is not that music.



Jay-Z - The Black Album

This is a great fucking album. There is a reason that there are hundreds of mash-ups of this record. The lyrics are smart and interesting, and the album goes from weaker songs to stronger songs. It only gets better until it finally ends. The samples and backing tracks are from interesting sources, and the words are meaningful and from the heart. Sure, the first few songs are full of thuggish braggadocio, but Sean Carter comes out a few songs later and becomes a man that you is easy to empathize with. Sure the statement of this being the last Jay-Z album was a lie, but that hardly detracts from the social impact of this album, and the fact that it is a great album despite all of the hype.


Hole - Celebrity Skin

Celebrity Skin is Hole's Worst album by far. Oh, it isn't a bad album. Celebrity skin is a totally listenable album, and it even has like two really good songs. The title track is an undeniably powerful pop song. What you might not know about this record is that it wasn't really written by Hole. None of Hole's records were actually written by the band. Courtney Love is not a musician, she is an opportunist. She dated Billy Corgan around the time that her band was recording Pretty on the Inside, and then later when Celebrity Skin was recorded. Corgan was the primary songwriter on the latter, and an important songwriter on the former. When Courtney married Kurt Cobain he became the primary songwriter on Live Through This. All of those allegation being made, Celebrity Skin is a Billy Corgan album. The album was Billy writing a pop album after he got over his Adore phase. He has always been a prolific songwriter, and has never taken issue with playing songs written by others or writing songs for other musicians to play. If Corgan had not been involved this record would have been absolute shit. His involvement saved Hole from Utter failure, but only by a slim margin.