16 Volt - Wisdom (Re-release)

Industrial metal is in my honest opinion a genre which should have never invented at all. For some reason bands like these manage to combine the worst of industrial with the worst of metal into one dull sounding mess. I have the impression if a metal guitarist is not good enough, and don't want to switch to bass, he opts for industrial metal instead.

16 Volts 'Wisdom' is a re-release of their debute album with added bonus material. The material comes from a period when for some reason industrial bands wanted to "rock" more, and added boring metal powerchords to their music. Mostly sampled as well. In Europe this never catched on. But the US seems to like it more because of the avarage disdain for electronic music in more mainstream circles in those days. And today, though the rise of what they call EDM in the states might change that, like techno and house did in Europe in 1990 and onwards.

On the moments when the music isn't ruined by the horrible stale guitar shredding it is obviously that 16 Volt is a band capable of bringing some good old stuff like Front Line Assembly or Revolting Cocks on their first albums. Without the guitars the stuff sounds pretty bad ass, and it is a shame to hear all the cool sounds and rhythmns drown when that wailing wall of guitar noise is played or sampled over the music. A problem all industrial metal bands have, because i have never heard a good album in this genre. The combination metal guitars and industrial/EBM styled music just doesn't work for me. I like metal, i like industrial, but the mix of these two only breeds mediocrity. "Motorskill" the openertrack is a very good example of this. The parts without the guitars are great and really slowly grinding and funky, but every time the guitars sound all the funkyness and badass grooves dissappear and thats pretty painfull to hear.

There are three remixes and two original songs on this album which do not have guitars and these are pretty good. If the entire album was like this i would have given it a 7 or a 8, but unfortunately every time the guitars enter the music it falls to 2 or 3 level to me. This averages out to a 5 obviously.

If you are in an industrial or EBM band, and you think of adding metal guitars to sound more rock, or look more like a band: Don't do it. Because you will suck. Either go play proper metal of go fully electronic. Dec 03 2012