Fabious Corpus Act - Alien Sky

Belarus isn't a country you immediately associate with high profile Electro-Industrial. Fabious Corpus Act released this album for free download on the label website, and it received mass acclaim very quickly.What I have here, is the rarer CD edition, with two additional exclusive tracks.

I have never actually physically had a package from a former Soviet state before, and always found their Industrial to be of a scale that is hard to surpass in the Western lands.

This album is an impressive package, I love the typically Industrial artwork and font style used on the Liner notes, and the Cover art is equally fantastic as it is basic - the CD version has a slightly different cover to the digital version. Yay!

This album opens with "Futile World", which is a progressive piece of pure Electro-Industrial, and like many acts from the former Soviet Union, the ideals and themes of desolation, abandoned shelters, and the general bleakness that you associate with "Industrial" (in the true sense of the word) run ripe here.

"The City" suggests to me that I should hear something equally bleak - like recording the centre of Chernobyl after the explosion. It does have a gorgeous ambient backdrop, with sounds very very much like a Female vocalist chanting. This works beautifully with the fast Drumloops, and it's almost like the song is saying :

"Look, We have destroyed everything, but don't worry, Hope is here".

"The City" is also the first track on this release to have vocals, and unfortunately, they are in Russian. The vocals don't sound bad to me, however.

Irony is also ripe here, as if the band itself knew what my review was going to say while producing this album, the next track is called "Desolation". It sounds too similar to the tracks that come before it, and unfortunately, like most projects of this nature, I do fear it will become a very repetitive album.

The title track, "Alien Sky", is pretty fucked up, and does actually sound like an Alien Sky. Very Metallic, very Abrasive, and very creepy.

Towards the latter half of this album, the songs pick up in tempo, and become a lot more frenzied - there is also some excellent Guitar work poking around. The final track on the digital edition, "Distant Flame Before The Sun" is not only the best track on the standard album, but also the coolest song title I have seen in a while. The track itself has a nice pace, great Electronic moments, and a synth line that takes it back about 20 years, and actually sounds a bit Kraftwerk-like.

Moving towards the tracks that you will only get on the CD version (which at 7 USD is a steal), "Morality" almost reads as a warning to us all. It's like saying "If you don't take care of your Planet, then you will reap the consequences". The fact that it is the last official track, as well as a track you only get for actually supporting the project, makes it feel like a little slice of forbidden Fruit in your Ears. It's pretty good, too.

I'm not a huge Remix fan, I find them hit or miss, but the remix of "Through Horizon" certainly isn't awful.

I walk away from this release knowing I will listen to it again, and again. However, using my scoring system (which is detailed on my profile page), I have to give it a 6 (due to mainstream accessibility, and likeliness of everyone enjoying it), Plus 1 point for a fantastic package.

Really good release! Thanks Andrey and Vitali! Feb 15 2011