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Archived Reviews
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This Canadian trio have been on my radar since the excellent "Contain" proved one of the highlights of "Septic 5" & this album announces the arrival of a major new name in the realms of hard, dark electro. The music here seems to straddle the line between the hellektro' of Hocico or Aesthetic Perfection (I'm sure Out Of Line would have snapped them up if Dependent hadn't) & Assemblage 23's poppier style but while the influences are obvious it seems as if Fractured are searching for a more characteristic niche & while they haven't quite got there yet this is an excellent start. The opening "What Is The Moment Of Truth" actually springs a major surprise with it's darkly atmospheric opening & spoken voice of It-Clings, who epitomises eloquent fury as his rant grows in intensity while the music builds into a strong industrial rock piece with the 'cut up' effects adding a suitably 'fractured' feel to the music. If this style could have been incorporated more fully into the album as a whole it would have made for a far more individual sound but as soon as the title track gets into its stride we're in more familiar, albeit high-quality EBM territory, aided by these 'cut up' effects (how do you describe them exactly?) & while they're a well-used electro staple rarely have they been used so widely. This adds a characteristic &, at times, most unexpected turn to the album & while it mostly works well, adding a more clinical touch to such up-tempo numbers as "Between The Lines" & the soaring "Stratified Society" (to name but two) while making the vocals of "Everytime" sound almost inhuman, it does break the melodic flow of "Becoming One" somewhat, leaving it to "One More Time" & "Haunted Memories" to really fulfill the band's melodic, emotive potential as, in the latter case, the outer anger is dropped to reveal the hurt that lies underneath. The rhythms fortunately stop just short of glitch although "Try To Forget" marries pacey drum n bass breakbeats with more impressively-constructed musical backgrounds that give this album a greater longevity than many of it's kind; just one of the many reasons Fractured are destined to become major players in EBM. |
