SMP

Terminal
(Underground Inc.)

Don’t get me wrong… I like SMP a lot. I mean, “Terminal” was, for me, the best album of 2000. Unfortunately, this is not “Terminal”. This is, in fact, a “Jason Bazinet’s greatest hits” album, collecting songs from “Terminal” and “Ultimatum”, as well as new tracks, “Acid Drop” and “Analogue Assassins”, from the “Notes From Thee Real Underground” series.

In all fairness, it isn’t quite right to even call it “Terminal”, as it contains only 9 of the original 17 tracks, having trimmed out everything touched by Sean Ivy after his departure from the band and replaced them with some of Jason’s favorites from the past two albums. A fantastic and well-balanced electro-punk-rap album now sounds very hollow in its new form.

I understand the need to release an album that you can tour behind and Underground Inc. is a great opportunity for SMP’s music to finally see daylight. And I admit tracks like “Chemicals”, “Pictures Of You”, and “Megaton” still satisfy, but this is a case of insufferable revisionist history. It doesn’t seem right to finally offer fans easy access to your album nationwide, but make no attempt to tell them that this isn’t the album they think it is. And without upbeat tracks like “Policy”, “Dirt”, “Anthem”, and “Mothkiller” on this “improved” album to balance out Jason’s more downbeat industrial-rap, this “Terminal” is inaccessible.

Fortunately for fans, ADSR Musicwerks still has copies of the original version available.

(Underground Inc., P.O. Box 16008 Chicago, IL 60616)

 

from IndustrialnatioN Magazine #17 (2002)