Angel of Violence - Circuit Board Messiah

Pretty big boast there, guys. Messiah or no messiah, 'Oligarch' from the first album 'Assault & Bathory' (Nicely done), is genius. More of the same on this album and I'll confirm your Messianic status.

Labelled as Glitch, IDM, Breakcore, Dark Electro, and Harsh EBM (depending on where you look) is enough to fucking confuse you. I'd be more worried if this wasn't a project consisting of Lucidstatic (who is proven to me as a decent musician). His partner here 'Sumbraxis' deals with the vocals, and it's the unique style that threw me back with Oligarch. It reminds me of Skinny Puppy combined with Sonne Hagal, a sentence that frankly shouldn't be allowed to exist.

I'm gonna go ahead and press play, nervously, to see if these guys are Messiahs, or just very naughty boys. Our opener is 'Blasphiend' at Five and a half minutes, and it's about the same as the average track by Lexincrypt - slow, brooding and overlayed with some eerie and rather unique ambience. It's very samey, and as openers go, doesn't stick out too much for me. The vocals are great, and it has synth parts which are great, but it hasn't yet rewritten the textbooks.

Our second track starts with Ellipses in its name, and is called '...and angels'. I like tracks that do this, as when performed well it leaves you so open to interpretation, and to one listener, the song can be 500 different things, as the missing word basically allows the listener to write the song. This has thunderous slow basslines, built around soaring soundscapes and is hectic as hell. Technically brilliant, and this is WHAT I'm hoping for. It's also exactly Nine minutes in length - damn.

I think this is one of those albums where each track flows perfectly into the next, this is just integrated so well that when 'The Bad Man' kicks in, it takes me a minute to realise. The lyrics on here are beautiful, and the vocal style has evolved to sound like My Dying Bride slowed down, it's doom-influenced, but remains acceptable for its purpose.

Where are this duo supposed to go from here? This is a slow burner, built around musicianship and the album title generates all the right reactions, but this is very much a mood album, and you have to fancy slower Electro to rate it. Get in the frame of mind, and little can surpass this.

Eleven tracks is probably the right amount, and 72 minutes makes an average track length of nearly six and a half minutes. Definately an act to watch, confidence is here in abundance. Oct 22 2011