Gasoline Invertebrate - Cracked Wax Battery

The amount of projects that Brian Graupner is involved in is astounding to say the very least. When he isn’t blasting out his unfiltered nerdiness in The Gothsicles, he’s collaborating within someone else on their song or starting some random project just because, well, it’s fun. Gasoline Invertebrate is the result of one of his many side-projects whose debut album “Freak Drive” came out in 2017. It came out to fan approval and acclaim with many eagerly awaiting further guzzolene fueled madness. Well, they got what they asked for with two additional EPs and a sophomore album releasing in the following years. 2022 sees Gasoline Invertebrate tackle their third full-length offering “Cracked Wax Battery”. To say the very least, it’s a fun and rampant industrial and dark electro fueled ballad with a killer remix section. 

'Witch's Mark' is standard aggrotech / EBM playground. Take the harsh, whispered vocals of aggrotech mixed with a dancefloor dark electro beat and you have 'Witch's Mark'. While it's not my favorite track on the album, Graupner does give it grand production in comparison to many of the other current aggrotech acts on the market. Industrial meets pop vocals on the track 'Chrono-Klepto', so I suppose I can label this as the very notorious and currently controversial genre of industrial-pop. Nonetheless, the metallic and clockwork drums and gritty synths layered in the song plays alongside the anonymous vocalist's grand voice. Every once in a while, it's echoed by a quiet and robotic voice as well. 

'I'm Leaving' once again brings back harsh vocals a la aggrotech and dark electro. The beat is a four-on-the-floor jam but mixes more with Graupner's identity thanks to a mix of 8bit sounds. It's a fun little detraction from the norm to say the very least. The harsh vocals continue to flourish into 'Please Rate Your Pain'. What I like about this song is just how chill it sounds; it's a soundtrack to space exploration in my opinion. However, both the title of the song and the lyrics therein are ridiculously dark, as if it's being sung by a mad scientist as you're strapped down as the subject of vicious experiments. 

‘Third Eye Turned Inside Out’ is an atmospheric dark techno track filled with angelic choral, down and dirty dancefloor beats, and plenty of breakdowns in between. ‘Human Suit’ takes things back a notch but sticks within dark techno territory. The beat is crisp and clear, and the samples used throughout the track harken further to sci-fi territory, with well-placed samples regarding demons furthering that statement. The last original mix on the album is the title track, ‘Cracked Wax Battery’. This is a little over three-minute dance track influenced by the likes of trance and might I dare say Eurodance. 

The last four tracks on the album are remixes by the likes of Edgecase Development, Giant Monsters on the Horizon, [syndika:zero], and Psyence Fiction. While all the remixers on the album do a decent job, my favorite comes from Psyence Fiction. I like remixes of songs that completely stray from the source, and that’s exactly what Psyence Fiction does. He takes the brighter dancefloor song and transforms it into an atmospheric cross between witch house and trap beats. Well done.  

Graupner mostly does no wrong with his outputs; every time he releases something I try to make it a priority to listen to it. The reason is simple; it’s fun and frenetic and I hardly ever have a bad time with his music. Gasoline Invertebrate is no different in that regard and “Cracked Wax Battery” is a great addition to the Graupner-verse of music. Eight out of ten.