Various Artists - Proven in Action

My first thought when I got this CD was: How the f-ck do I write a review on record with mixed artists? And sure, you can put a score on the mix of artists or write a shorter review on every artist on the CD, but I don't think that's the right way to do it. A compilation CD exists for many reasons and this compilation exist to tell you what kind of artists you can find on First Aid Records. It is also a tip for those who are in search for new music.

Before I begin I just want to say that I won't write a long review on every artist, no it will rather bee a summary of a bunch of artists. As with the most compilations there are always one or more artists that you know of, and so it is in this case for me. Tarmvred, Arzt+Pfusch, Converter, Dive, L.E.A.K, The Pain Machinery and F/A/V is artists I know.

To make a short story long, Dive's "Bloodmoney" (live version) is a genius move because that song is great. Tarmvred is always great. Arzt+Pfusch, LEAK, Converter and F/A/V is stuff I don't listen so much on, but they are OK. The Pain Machinery I have seen live once, and I liked them at that time, and I still do. For me the unknown projects are Splitter, Preset, Fortress, Milligramme, Larvae, TolworC, Pneumatic Detach, Detritus, Cdata Kill and Diskrepant. I think they deserve some comments as well.

Splitter and Fortress is two groups I won't spend to much time searching for more material with, just because they got a boring and uninteresting sound. Maybe it wasn't the best songs they done that were presented here, I don't know. Anyway, Preset got a song called "Love Is A stalker" that I liked, this is something I'd like to know more about. Milligramme and Larvae has both made interesting pieces of music and I'd like to hear more from them. Larvae's song "Vostok" is the best song on this compilation by the way.

TolworC is the group I became most exited about and after them I think Cdata Kill is the next most interesting act. Is it only me or does Diskrepant sound a bit like Zoviet/France? Pneumatic Deatch sounds like cyber techno with the weight on noise. Not my favourite directly, but it works on a compilation like this. And speaking of it, Detritus (is the name taken from the out bashing troll Detritus in Terry Pratchett's series about the Discworld?) I think their music was interesting with a good mixture of noise, beats and nice softer background melodies.

To things up, Tarmvred, YolworC and Cdata Kill are my favourites on this compilation. Artists that can climb higher is Detritus, Preset and Larvae, the rest has to share the positions from 7-17 in alphabetic order. Although, this record is defiantly something you should have if you are interested in noise and harder EBM because it has a lot of interesting alternatives. Buy it!

This review was written 2004 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2004