Friday, October 11, 2024

Gothtober- MVTANT : "Electronic Body Horror"

 




This Texas-based project comes closer to the 90s definition of industrial music than most of the albums I have found this year. We have clanging machine-like beats and samples coloring the edges of the song. The vocals are hushed and urgent. They work for the first two songs, but, will need some dynamics out of the album eventually. He does modulate the beats, so everything is not working off the same drone. There is also more of an attempt at songwriting than his other peers in the underground scene. This shifts to a pretty dancey place by the end of the second song. 

"Voraphobes' finds the dancey vibes consuming things as the whispered vocals fall further back in the mix. He adds just enough layers of sound for this to go somewhere. "Kanashabari"  does have some darker moods lurking enough the bounce of the plastic beats. The vocals continue to contribute very little to the songs, just an inner tension that is not allowed to explode. What is being missed here is the importance of vocals, which keeps something like this from being on the level of Nine Inch Nail.  Even when they drop a more banging beat into a song like "Ultra Gash Inferno", the ceiling is lowered for it without melody at the heart. Even abrasive bands like Skinny Puppy grasp this element. "In Dreams" is more ambient,  when the beat converges into a steamy groove it's about as effective as it's going to be with the vocals doing the ole thing. 

"Burst Boy' is more ominous and might work on a horror movie soundtrack. Cool sounds more than being a cool song. It seems like that is the direction this album is slowly heading.  This makes "Trauma Bond' more of an interlude while, "Mechaphilla" is more of a song even if he is once again employing the whispered vocals, which is all that has appeared on this album. He must not be an aggressive person and more of a pacifist in this regard. The last song at least shifts dynamically musically. I will give this an 8, and I am rounding it down due to the fact the vocals bored, perhaps with a different singer this album might have been awesome, but if you just want dancey music that is dark this will work , 




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