Battery Cage - Product

You probably wonder why I choose to review a record that's seven years old, but the reason is probably not that weird when you take a closer look. The album 'Product' was completed back in '98 after the band had spent over one and a half year in the studio, but when the album were to be released the label SINless Records threw the towel in and the album never saw daylight of the record shops. With Tyler Newman in the front the band choose to release the album in '05 with a little face lift in form of using more modern equipment.

When this album was recorded Battery Cage were a gang of angry youngsters who (ab)used way too many illegal substances to be healthy for mind and body. Allot of you hard electronic fans out there know exactly what happens when you take a gang of stoned North Americans and place them in front of electronic equipment, I refer to Skinny Puppy during their great era.

The first time I heard Battery Cage was when I got hold of a copy of the superb album 'World Wide Wasteland', truly great industrial EBM with heavy guitar and sing along friendly lyrics. Therefore I couldn't have gotten more surprised when I was served shitty, screaming mix of electronic music.

Sure, the track "Caged" is good, but are truly formed to total excellence on the record "World Wide Wasteland". Informatik's remix of "Blunt Force Trauma" is alright and I think I even could have put on the track "Static" right after Dulce Liquido's "Psychosis". Farther than that I unfortunately can't go since I don't think this album is that great.

The band themselves have told me that Product don't sound anything like 'World Wide Wasteland' (which I totally agree on) and that their new album (which is being produced right this moment) not going to sound anything like 'World Wide Wasteland'. That leaves me very curious of what I'm going to hear the next time I hear the band.

Tyler, sorry buddy, but this isn't that great. But you know I truly love your latest work.

This review was written 2005 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2005