reADJUST - Mindwalk

In the land of Harsh EBM, it's hard to stand out from the crowd. Does reADJUST succeed or simply plummet into the big hole of ordinary?

The first thing that strikes me with reADJUST is the great music and melodies. Instead of simply putting all their effort into making some noise and add some beat to it, they have worked hard on the melodies and throughout the album managed to keep it varied enough to keep you interested, but without falling off their concept and style. You never get the sensation of listening to the same track over and over again.

The vocals on the other hand are your generic hissing and harsh distorted vocals, for most of the time. Compared to the music, it feels so ever unchanging. There's no differences in tone, aggressiveness or style, it get's a bit tedious after a while. It moves the focus from the vocals completely and you simply turn to the music for entertainment. However, in the track "Stop the Sequence" the hissing and distortion is gone. Even though the singing is not great (on the other hand, Andy's vocals in Icon of Coil is terrible, so why not), I'm glad to have a little break from the generic. With a bit wider capability in the vocals, the music and vocals would work much better together without the distortion.

However, this is a good Harsh album and should bring something to the table for all into the style. Best track of the album is "What Will Happen", so make sure you check that one out at least. With a bit of work and development, reADJUST might be able to fight with bloody knuckles hard enough to reach the inner sanctum of the genre. May 25 2011