4 out of 5

Label: Metropolis

Producer: Rudy Ratzinger

I’m not an industrial fan.  Though I dab at the fringes of bands inspired by the genre, actually stepping outside wearing a NiN tee or anything from Metropolis ain’t gonna be me.  When I was at Tower and would nab Metropolis promos, I would rarely follow-through on my “listen to it first” rule and would generally pass it right on to my black-clad industrial friend.  Whenever I’ve read something that makes me interested in an artist’s output, even as my listening takes have grown to encompass a lot of styles I wouldn’t have initially messed with, much of the scene’s music still plays by a pretty set of rules which just don’t do much for my ears.  And :wump:y, with its monochrome covers with crosses and dead bodies and track names like ‘Womb’ and ‘Pest’ wouldn’t seem to hit too far off the mark.  And I guess on the whole, Rudy – who is :wumpscut: – will never be mistaken as making music for a genre other than industrial, but the output also shows how much strength and variation can be worked into even the smallest confines.

Similar to how Alec Empire’s rough production style warms up his house work to be something I can find tolerable (or even enjoyable), Ratzinger puts a lot of depth into the noise and gristle of :wump:, whereas most groups are content to let the metallic edge shine true, the beats and keys coming off as flat and drilling.  “Golgotha” seems to start in this territory, the electro keys and beats layering on each other for a couple minutes in that vague 80s sound these groups love, but at about a minute in when Rudy starts to sing, the work takes shape – his distorted vocals are blended in to the beat and add a layer of fuzz to the mix, and lo, there’s actually a sense of song structure, of choruses and verses and bridges.  But we’re still sorta’ stuck to somewhat typical territory, talking about Christ and burning and whatnot.

But then, ah, ‘Embryodead.’  As soon as the wickedly discordant keys kick in, I’m sold.  :wumpscut: gets up to something deliciously evil business, some of it a tad forced, sure, but most of it coming across as legitimate, similar to Foetus in that the lyrical content doesn’t exactly surprise you, but the presentation sells you on it (to me, in a way much more convincing than Trent Reznor or Manson).  The production depth I referred to is littered all across Embryodead, samples and key noodling popping up in unexpected places and mixed in with an awareness of how it affects the pace and beat – not just tossing a creepy sample up front because we’re industrial and we like Nazis, or something.

Some of the tracks still fall into typical territory of gloomy stuff that Cure fans dig – like ‘Angel’ – but then we get the rapaciously pummeling ‘War,’ which just keeps building and building to exhaustively awesome extremes, and the creepy more ambient leaning work of tracks like ‘Pest’ and closer ‘Stillbirth’.  Since this is early-ish :wump: material, I’ll have to see where Rat went from here – more toward the center, more toward the fringes – but Embryodead makes me glad to embrace something that’s fully part of the industrial scene, and not having to make exceptions to do so – it’s a devastating, evil listen, firmly rooted amongst its peers but sticking out like a beacon of creativity.