Statiqbloom : "Blue Moon Blood"

The opening track meets in that dark alley created in 90s by the likes of Skinny Puppy and pre-metal riffs Ministry. It has a beat the hammers you as it makes you dance. Things get even darker on "Black Walks Eternal" Fade offers a wider range of vocal flavor some of these more tortured and almost death rock like. The samples are clever and well placed. The vocals are used to set the tone to "Crooked Line" has do so with a smart syncopation that compliments the rough beat under it. "Talons Teeth" comes much closer to being the more typical brand of industrial that blared in most of the clubs during the genre's peak. The vocals are shouted in the cyber-drill Sargent manner, but a few other vocal colors are injected. There is more of a creeping synth slither to "Adrift". The vocals are more of a croaked narrative. It does find it's groove like the others and works of a more droning pulse.

"Feel the Flesh" finds Skinny Puppy's long lost "Rabies" drum sound. They had a somewhat more angular glitch to the pattern and the vocals take on a lower murmur. I like the more sung vocal moan that the 2:30 mark. It took me a second listen before I paid attention to "Mortuary". It is a little more formless than the rest of the album. The vocals are in a low whispered underneath the formless shift of the beat that never takes on a groove. "Nigredo" not only has a beat, it has one that pretty much slays the rest of the album, and this song might have my favorite lyrics as well.

The synth pulse in "Pale Lust" feels like a theme that is being continued from the previous song. It is almost like the outro for "Nigredo" if it was allowed to drone out more. The albums closes with the chaotic epic "Phantom Eye". The songs starts off with samples colliding into the beat and ambient noise smacking you around a bit. The song never takes form like the others. It flirts with many of the elements that I have like throughout the album, but here they are thrown against the wall for the sake of seeing what sticks. When the beat builds by the end of the song it does gel more for me. Overall the songs he decides are going to be songs are all excellent. I will round this one up to a 9 and see how it sits on me.