Severe Illusion - Discipline Is Reward Enough

'Discipline is reward enough' is Severe Illusion's first full album after the MCD 'Discover without reflection'. The band has done a couple of gigs in their home country, but it's in Germany and it's neighbors that the band had their biggest success.

When I heard the album for the first time I found myself a little bit skeptical. The album is enormously distorted and it's sometimes hard to hear the lyrics and often the music felt a little bit to "dirty". But a little by little you agreed with the distorted sound and it sound really good. I had most trouble with the voice, but now I understand that if they had used to little distortion the atmosphere would have disappeared, because all the instruments that are used have a large mount of distortion in it. Although they maybe should have pitched it down a little bit.

All the Severe Illusion tracks fit well at the heavier dance floors even though the BPM is a little bit slow. But you should expect to hear the fourth track "Surveilance" out there if you already haven't.

The album is dirty enough and your thoughts go to how Skinny Puppy once sounded.

This review was written 2003 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2003