Hard-Wired Industrial Review
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Mindless Faith's debut album Momentum from 2004 was full of very good tracks that were so diverse as to be stylistically all over the place. On this follow-up, the Sevanick brothers have got it exactly right with a dynamic album of industrial/electro that sounds both varied & still cohesive to just the right degree. The band's MO is, on the face of it, a fairly simple one, to combine pumping danceable rhythms with some exciting & often dramatic electronics & layer the whole lot with lashings of red hot guitar riffs, which is how 'Bound' comes racing out of the traps, kicking the album into life. As exciting openers go this is second to none & sets proceedings up nicely but while there are a number of such floor fillers sprinkled throughout the album, among them the eye catchingly-titled 'I'm Pretty Much Fucked', 'Down Here' & 'Tell', it soon becomes apparent that this is but a fraction of what the band are about. For example, some real drums give 'A Blind Spot In Every Eye' a more organic, almost lo-fi feel while their talent for sound manipulation leads to some very atmospheric moments as well, most noticeably during 'The World Beyond The World' (where some voice is credited but it sounds like an instrumental to me) where the mix of floating chords & slightly abrasive sound effects make for a track every bit as atmospheric as the title. This facet of the band crops up here & there throughout but is taken to its logical extreme on the closing 'Bullet' where a reasonably short but totally full-blooded electro/rock section is bookended by just about the most cosmic (maaaan!) theme you could ever imagine as, with its echoed guitar & warm bass sound it could almost be a soundtrack for your mental journey to into the distant galaxies (that's a good thing, by the way!). But if that's a step too far for some rivetheads 'Another Empire Falls' sets a much darker mood by means of a nightmarish sonic kaleidoscope where the tortured voice reaches ever greater heights of anguish & suffering while the full-blooded mood of 'The Dust Of Centuries' (with a vocal perfomance not unlike Combichrist, as it happens) would do any band proud.
Like the rest of Dependent's acts Mindless Faith will, by now, be searching for a new home but with this superb album under their belts the labels will most likely be beating a path to their door so check this out pronto & give your ears a treat. |
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