Black Magnet : "Hallucination Scene"

Industrial music is one of my favorite genres, it is hard to do it without paying homage to the 90s. This makes it a tough sell because I was there in the 90s when this was happening for real. It opens with a relentless almost punk pound that reminds me more of Angkor Wat. I get that this is industrial and a one man band, but the drum progreamming needs more love. It sounds like electric clicks of a hight and is not effective enough to hold the beat until things break down. Think of the best industrial albums, they have huge pounding drum sounds, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails have some of the beat precussion recorded. To fall short is a tough blow to come back from. The firs two songs as find the vocals not doing a great deal for me as they are more of a punk yell. They do improve on the second song so there is hope for them.

The angry punk ranting continues in an even more confrontational manner on "Punishment Map". I think what is the most offensive about this is the lack of groove, that is what makes industrial. Sure there are bands that just focused on angry. Even some of the greatest industrial bands did this it was however not all they did. "NeuroProphet" is the first song that breaks from the angry and focuses on being a musical song that I like. The songs remain shifted in this improved direction for " Trustfucker" . There is enough angry here without allowing it to consume the song and sound likea temper tantrum.  "Crush Me " is decent, as it keeps a groove, but I do not think it goes the extra mile to win me over like "Hegemon". Granted "Hegemon" is darker so that is going to sway me towards it. There is also a smoother flow to the song.

One of the great things about industrial music was how it had such an experimental spirit in all that it did. The last song doesn't not find it'se groove among this , but has some pleasing sounds along the way of it's dense wandering. I will give this album an 8.5. It gets a lot right about the genre, in fact more than it gets wrong and is a fair tribute to the classic years. If you were not alive in the 90s you might be more impressed.