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 nagging feeling that the music doesn’t quite mesh as well as it could. Though many of the tracks, like “Sensory Tide” and the exceptionally atmospheric “The Rains”, deliver the goods, others seem slapdash or schizophrenic in their need to embrace styles too diverse to fit together properly.

“A Polemic” never quite satisfies with its strange thrash-metal guitar lined up with electronics, though the instrument that seems to create the most discord throughout the early part of the album is the vocals. A bit dry and, often, off-key, you’re left wishing that the vocalist would stick to the assertive speaking vocal style pioneered by Sascha K. instead of trying too hard to delve into styles that don’t quite meet up to par or his range of ability. The robot voices of “The Binary Age” never quite mix well into the song and leave it as a bad last taste of the album, though the music has a certain enjoyability despite the vocal shortcomings. (And don’t even bother sticking around for the post-last-track hidden instrumental.)

But, despite these discrepancies and rough spots, the album is a great balance of old and new, giving its listener another outlet for the ever-lessening supply of electronic rock that some still clamor for, despite the massive lack of notice from the industrial underground. There’s danceable numbers, rock numbers, atmospheric instrumentals, and straight-up metal tracks here, bound to tug at the heartstrings of the coldwave enthusiasts out there who haven’t left industrial music behind for greener rock and metal pastures. The sequencing is entirely respectable, the guitar work, when restrained and kept in the mix instead of at the forefront of a metal assault, is enjoyable, the writing is smooth and non-abrasive, and the vocals, when kept within a certain range, are often a good touch to the music.

A band could do much worse than to harken back to the halcyon days of industrial and keep it fresh enough to feel that it’s not just a repeat or rip-off. With work, polish, and time, Psychaesthetic may be part of our next generation of industrial-rock leaders.

 

from ReGen Magazine (~11/2004)