3 out of 5

Produced by: Roli Mosimann

Label: TVT

I’ve previously ragged on allmusic for occasionally delivering slim sentence summaries of albums that in no way offer anything of critical context, but sometimes… there’s just not all that much to say.  Gravity Kills rode a NiN-inspired industrial wave to some singles in the late 90s, rushing a subsequent album that ended up sounding like the singles-anchored hot flash it was.  Their debut copped the right attitude and catchy riffs, but copped it pretty much the same way on every track and added in cut-and-paste teen angst lyrics to boot.  The remix album that followed notably improved things by mostly ditching the vocals and having some seasoned pros whip the beats into shape.  A suitable amount of time later came this sophomore album, and, sure, its mostly the same as the debut: Industrial beats and angry guitars with the vocals leaning more toward Depeche Mode than yelly guy.  But: Actually having time to write material and not just design a release around some hit songs has definitely given the album much more solid footing.  The production doesn’t feel like it’s masking gaps, but instead working with the group’s attempt at (slightly) broadening – and certainly smoothing out – their approach, and the lyrics, though nothing new, are no longer am embarrassment.  And to their credit, there’s no clear Guilty or Blame carbon copy.

Perversion should easily satisfy any fans of the first album and won’t convince haters there’s much more to the group, but it’s a solid followup that has the group putting in the effort to deliver another batch of industrial pop.