Propergol "Program Vengeance" CD
[Malignant]
I haven't followed Propergol but so much over the years, but apparently this is the French outfit's fifth full-length, which is quite an astounding feat in and of itself.  Whether or not it's the fifth chronologically I'm not sure, as apparently this work was recorded way the hell back in back in 1999 and remastered in 2003, so I'm not clear on what the story is there.  Included herein is a whopping 17 tracks and more than an hour of immensely sinister dark ambient/death industrial that uses everything from low rumbles and percussive industrial rhythms to metallic clankings and scrapings over a wide variety of samples - all intricately woven together in quite a cinematic fashion.  The tracks run together and several repeating elements tie things together thematically from time to time, so it's sort of like one large piece broken up into "scenes" - again carrying that certain cinematic current throughout.  The more beat oriented rhythms surfacing in "The Program", the third track, aren't really my thing and sort of clash with the chilling aesthetics heard elsewhere (honestly there's somewhat of a "club" kind of thing happening in this one), but for the most part the percussive elements are far more tactfully handled, and thankfully this is the only composition that goes too far.  In the repetitious "V.V. - Voodoo Vault", for example, there's a tribal sort of lean to the percussion and the fizzled low-end rumbles that cascade across the piece.  There's an overuse of samples at times, where tracks like "Initials L.B." make the most interesting use of samples with longer tirades that subsist for the entire six-minute piece, while a few others just layer and splice a ton of different sampled content left and right without as much cohesion.  It's also with this track (as well as the similar but more ominous "Our Last Call", which begins a darker and more minimal ambient run later in the disc) that it becomes apparent that a good chunk of this content seems to deal with legendary comedian Lenny Bruce (specifically these samples) - a subject that this project has explored before (even naming a track after him on the "Getting Away With Murder" compilation CD in 2003).  I can't entirely gauge how all of that ties into the big picture here, but on some level I'm not sure I care, as that's a bit of a specific topic that I'm not terribly fascinated by, least of all in this context.  Portions of the eight-minute "Delete" are sheer power electronics mastery, making superb use of overwhelmingly distorted vocals (Samples?), though admittedly the pounding 4/4 rhythm that comes into play can drive one insane after minute upon minute of relentless repetition.  The first few minutes of the track are brilliant, though.  The disc comes in a nice looking digipack with minimal text and only a few fiery colored abstract images that have bits and pieces of recognizable or suggestive content, but nothing too blatant.  Simple yet effective.  Overall I enjoy this release, with my only minimal complaint being that the visual elements of the packaging suggest a slightly more violent and aggressive musical palette - one that is certainly touched upon herein, but a few of the more disjointed moments can hinder its progress to a degree.  I don't think the disc is too long considering its effective flow and almost narrative approach, but I do find that a few of the brief compositions of a minute or less lack a sense of purpose in the grand scheme of things.  The focus does at times feel lost, or perhaps altered, throughout the course of the disc as a whole, so could it have been better?  Yes, I do believe that were most all of the longer segments (sans "The Program") isolated you'd have a more cohesive and harnessed 50 or 55 minutes of material on your hands.  But, while lightly problematic, it still makes for an efficient listen whose finer parts are a bit strong than its end sum. (7/10)
Running time - 71:36, Tracks: 17
[Notable tracks: Something About the Past, V.V. - Voodoo Vault, Our Last Call, Welcome to Entertainment, Delete, En Vie]
Malignant Records - http://www.malignantrecords.com

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