Thee Maldoror Kollective "New Era Viral Order" CD
[Code666]
This Italian act plays industrial/electronic-tinged black metal, and I have to say that despite a few faults, they do it far better than most. For one thing, they use a lot of strong tempo changes rather than focusing on constant speed. So there's an even mix of tremolo picking and slower, churning rhythms with more of a thrash/death feel. They also integrate the electronics well. On occasion they'll use some vocal filters or synths that I'm not into, but most of the vocals are aggressive snarls and the synths are full-blown accents that bear a true resemblance to industrial music. They also blend live and programmed drums to a significant degree of success, or intersperse a few samples amongst the compositions. In some ways they can sound like a more electronic and less groove-laden Fear Factory at times (see portions of "Haemorrhage Transmission"). The recording is another plus, as despite having a bite at times, the guitar tone is quite effective and heavy - thankfully they don't use that thin, biting industrial sheen. The bass is also evident in most cases, and the live drums, while taut, are certainly dense and well handled. The mix is very dense and compact as well, so nothing really overpowers, and the vocals/samples are generally deep in against the instrumentation. "Drain-Wound-Cosmosis (Iera Porneusis)" is driven almost exclusively by synths and programmed beats, with distant distorted vocals, and it's actually one of my favorite tracks herein - further proof in my mind that this band knows what they're doing. The songs also range from three to seven minutes or so, but the longer tracks, despite being a bit repetitive, are still effective enough to remain interesting for their duration. The only mildly slow track is "La Flamme Vivant", five minutes of melodic ambient synths and rumbling background textures that, while fairly good, is a little dull in the center of the record against all of the more colorful material. The record is divided into three segments of three tracks, Analysis, Synthesis, and Thesis, but there's no real separation between the style of each division, though the final segment is a bit more powered by electronics and samples - closing with an MZ.412 remix by the name of "Epidemic Noise Age". The disc comes in a large, glossy digipack that folds out to reveal a good deal of strange artwork with lots of layers of images and some partially illegible text that's hard to make sense of, with no lyrics or anything really included. It's definitely a strange but interesting appearance. Overall I think this is good work, but it does cut it close since the latter handful of songs loses some of the initial punch that the three Analysis tracks provide. It could be significantly better as a whole, but this is far better than most such experimental metal. (7/10)
Running time - 48:52, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Haemorrhage Transmission, Drain-Wound-Cosmosis (Iera Porneusis), Epidemic Noise Age]
Code666 - http://www.code666.net

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