DELETEurACCOUNT.EXE - Factory Certified

The amount of information surrounding DELETEurACCOUNT.EXE is limited to say the very least, but it’s fitting with the aesthetic of the band. Like a hardboiled version of vaporwave, there’s a hard focus on computer simulation, AI intelligence, and other science fiction themes. The bandcamp description even includes some mock binary; I did try to put it through a binary translator (though I’m not sure how reliable those are). DELETEurACCOUNT.EXE, if you’re laughing at me, I would do the same in your shoes. Anyway, the band has a couple of niche tags attached to themselves such as cybertrap, hyperpunk, and nowave. Their debut single launched in February of 2022 and was followed up in the coming months by their debut album “Factory Certified”. The best way I can describe DELETEurACCOUNT.EXE’s sound is by saying that an AI was let loose into the archives of lo-fi electronica, came out glitching, and plastered its creations all over the deep web. The result is as uneven and rough as that statement sounds, where a decent concept is muddled through poor creation.

The primary vocalist of this project isn’t necessarily a vocalist at all, but a string of robotic vocal samples plastered within the songs. And this transfers from song to song, despite whatever effects are placed upon the voice. The overall downside to this method, though, is that the voice is never in tune with whatever beat is laid out and is out of place. Rather than trying to merge music and voice together, the AI sounds as if its reading off bulletin points in a random collage of noise that doesn’t necessarily make sense. This is apparent from the get-go with the song ‘iTWOeye’. 

‘iTWOeye’ also represents the overall theme of the album which is incoherent noise and electronics attempting to meld together into some kind of electronic Frankenstein. The focus on lofi music is notable and purposeful, and fits the aesthetic of the track. However, even for an experimental / noise track, it’s way too incohesive and every sound clashes with each other far too often to be enjoyable in any sense of the word. The second track on the album ‘Maleware’ has a pretty decent lo-fi beat at times, warping reality and the very essence of cyberspace. But it’s the voice that ruins it; if  DELETEurACCOUNT.EXE were able to find an actual vocalist rather than using the AI, I think this could have been a pretty good song. I felt much the same as ‘Maleware’ for songs such as ‘Python’, ‘Abort Function’, and ‘Corruption Reduction’. 

Now, many of the other tracks on the album have problems of their own. ‘Cat_Scratch_Disc’ is an overblown mess that just doesn’t do a thing for me and was a constant pass on replays of the album. ‘Coinboy’ starts with a penetrating, high-pitched synth that always annoyed my ears whenever I played it, so that became an automatic skip on subsequent plays of the album. ‘Hold_The_Lines’ was just non-stop high pitched sounds in a can and it just doesn’t sound good. You get the point; it’s just one problem after another on “Factory Certified”. 

It's regrettable to say that there’s nothing all that positive I can state about DELETEurACCOUNT.EXE’s “Factory Certified” aside from their aesthetic. But I think this is an album that suffers from style over substance. There’s a lot of work to be done, and no matter how many niche genres you attach to your name, it cannot and does not excuse poor production. There are a million bands out there with a shtick that works while sounding excellent. This just isn’t one of them. DELETEurACCOUNT.EXE can improve, though, and I think with a refocused effort on song structure, an actual vocalist, and making sounds work together, they could do well. They already have an impressive sound bank; they just have to divide their assets well enough. Four out of ten.