VZOID - Trauma

Although upon looking at VZOID you might mistake him for Captain America’s next big villain, or at least a minion of a Captain American villain, you would be mistaken. For VZOID is no comic book superhero or antihero, but something more than that. He is a proud maker of dark electronic beats within the industrial and EBM realms sporting a trademark leather jacket that so many fancy in the scene. Though his mask does refrain from using the gas part of gasmasks that so many rivetheads seem to fetishize. With stars on his masks forehead and red stripes painted below the eyes does VZOID hail from Munich, Germany. In addition to 2018’s “Perceptron” EP and 2019’s ‘Immersion’ full-length, VZOID is returning in 2023 with his brand-new EP “Trauma”. 

‘Power’ has hints of acid techno embedded into it but keeps to a strict EBM tempo and very light drum’n’bass elements. Vocals are grim and somewhat guttural as can be expected from an EBM project. I don’t think all of the sounds mesh together well and the track can sound sloppy at times; too many moving parts without cohesion. ‘Prophecy’ throws in a bit of industrial metal. Like the previous song I don’t think everything meshes well together. When the guitars come in, the mix turns into a non-stop wall of confusion. The chorus, where metal isn’t present, is a by-the-books EBM set that sounds as if a group of kids are playing lazer tag in the background. 

‘Flashback’ has the rapidness of thrash metal meeting industrial metal. Repetitive grooves and notes from the guitar don’t help much, mind you. The intro was the best part of the track; very punchy bass and electro-industrial inspired glitchy aesthetic. Then it falls apart. While the rapid nature of thrash meets industrial metal, everything becomes rapidly repetitive. ‘Sense Me’. Raw and ugly. It sounds like a demo, to be frank. Incomplete. While I’m at it, I’ll say the same for ‘Tranquility’. It felt as if with ‘Tranquility’, VZOID was starting to reuse many samples and sounds from a bank that already appeared in previous tracks. Rather than sounding original, it sounds like a remix. 

‘Crematoria’ is another bout of industrial metal that doesn’t mesh well that well. Interesting segments, such as the noise and sample riddled segment around the five-minute mark is bogged down by poor production value throughout the rest of the song.  ‘Ende’ is one of the better songs on the EP, but not enough to fix all the problems. Showing that sometimes less is more. Guitar riffs play well with a nice underlying electro bassline. The vocals leave something to be desired; they sound chopped up and forced rather than being cut in naturally with the rest of the beat. I also liked how VZOID played with some lofi, raw elements in the mix of the track before switching straight back to good production. 

While I will admit that VZOID has a pretty wicked looking persona, the music he shovels out isn’t that great. There’s a massive different in quality from song-to-song which hurts the overall flow of the album; it sounds like samples and noises are being chucked into songs at random just to fill in a void; and, towards the end of the EP, things start sounding same-y. ‘Ende’ is a good example of what can be accomplished when things roll right, but that doesn’t happen very often here. Five out of ten.