Author: Ryan Speck

  • Neuroticfish – “Bomb E.P.”

    Neuroticfish Category: Electro-pop Album: Bomb E.P. Neuroticfish borrows heavily from the style of VNV Nation and Assemblage 23, delivering hooky electronic pop songs with only a mildly dark edge separating it from being club synthpop. Obviously, comparisons can be made to Depeche Mode, as well. Bomb pulls heavily from the rulebook of earlier futurepop luminaries,…

  • Juno Reactor – “Labyrinth”

    Juno Reactor Category: Trance Album: Labyrinth Juno Reactor has delivered a soundtrack album for a non-existent movie… Well, not quite. Two of the tracks on Labyrinth, “Mona Lisa Overdrive” and “Navras” are from the soundtrack of the Matrix films. Many of the other tracks are in the vein of the high-paced orchestral-meets-electronica style that Juno…

  • Psychaesthetic – “Infinity’s End”

    Psychaesthetic Category: Industrial Album: Infinity’s End Psychaesthetic delivers an album of 90’s style industrial-rock which is, on the surface, entirely serviceable and will undoubtedly be pleasing to a variety of those still enjoying the works of KMFDM, Chemlab, and other industrial luminaries from the heyday of the style. But, beneath the surface, you have a…

  • Plastic Noise Experience – “Maschinenmusik”

    Plastic Noise Experience Category: Electro-pop Album: Maschinenmusik Though this album is posed as being “Dark-Electro” and “old-school EBM,” it bears more resemblance to the Kraftwerk-ian experimentation of the 70’s and early 80’s. Plastic Noise Experience seems to be expert at taking a new wave flavor and updating it for today, though only barely. Around since…

  • Panzer AG – “This Is My Battlefield”

    Panzer AG Category: Industrial Album: This Is My Battlefield Panzer AG is yet another side-project from the prodigious mind of Andy LaPlegua. Not satisfied with just Icon Of Coil or Combichrist, Panzer AG is LaPlegua’s newest project, delivering the tones of :wumpscut: or Suicide Commando combined with the distorted, thin drums of powernoise. While the…

  • halovox – S/T

    halovox Category: Electro-pop Album: halovox halovox offers some very decent minimalist synthpop filtered through a few retro-industrial affectations. The songs are very reminiscent of the 80’s, while having a few of the modern touches that many of the European synthpop acts employ. The tracks are often a schizophrenic mix, though. One lesson that halovox could…

  • Zog Welinski’s Day Off – “The First Day Off”

      Zog Welinski’s Day Off Category: IDM Album: The First Day Off I can’t remember listening to anything more boring in my life. “He’s insane,” you’re surely saying. “There’s got to be a million things more boring than that!” Well, that may be, but I’ve never heard them. Plus, those things are probably better. Because…

  • Velvet Vimoz – “Boy”

    Velvet Vimoz Category: Trance Album: Boy Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Annoying, isn’t it? Well, it’s more annoying when it’s the word “boy” being repeated about 7,000 times. “I wanna be a boy boy boy boy…” Is this really a pertinent use of vocals…

  • mindFIELD – “Singularity”

    mindFIELD Category: EBM Album: Singularity Firmly taking hold of the currently popular synthpop sensibility circulating through the industrial underground and giving it a good shove back into the territory of thick-sounding dark dance grooves, mindFIELD takes the better parts of the two sounds and makes them into a superior whole. Taking the tired and overused…

  • Naltrexone – “Forever Screaming”

      Naltrexone Category: Experimental Album: Forever Screaming Tasmania’s Naltrexone has self-released two CDs, small efforts, easily available free online, and I have been fortunate enough to have received a copy of the second. I will not describe the listening material of the CD, Forever Screaming, as “great” or “enjoyable,” but I think that the music…