The No. 1 Industrial Masterpiece of all times – 100%
Commander Octopus, September 18th, 2022
This is, by far, one of the most exciting releases in the history of extreme metal music. Filled to the brim with immortal classics, this stands steadily in the Pantheon with other epic outings of bands like Slayer, Morbid Angel etc.
This is essentially industrial metal with a strong American thrash flavour. Some might want to add “groove metal” to the pot, but I feel this term is misleading for this album. This is kind of anti-Yankee Yankee metal, if you get my paradox, and as such, the album and the lyrics are both plays with opposites and contradictions.
The monotony, repetitiveness and minimalism of industrial music only works if the riffs are great and the production stellar, and holy shit, this album contains some of the most lethal riffs written (“Just One Fix” being the obvious top pick). Speed ridden and chunky as chugging rapid sparks, the riffs spew forward like fire tongues from a furnace.
The production is excellent, the snare drum hits like a slap in the face each time, the guitar tone is rich with an edge. In good Ministry manners the songs are brimming with samples from movies and political speeches(?). Al Jourgensen never sounded this accurate and eager. The bass and bass drum are represented with rich bottom without ever muddying the overall sound.
I like electronic music and the key to a good techno track is to allow for breathers without ever letting off the steam. ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ does this splendidly. The build ups and drops allow for variation despite many of the songs chugging along on the same riff for well over 5 minutes. The steady beat and atmosphere builds up to a trance like experience essential to good electronic music, and metal as well, mind you!
There is not only speed here. “Scarecrow” is one of my all time favourite tracks – a droning sludgy slow epic song that makes me think of what a depressed outsourced sawmill would sound like if it could speak. Only Brutal Truth’s “Collapse” and possibly “Ordinary Madness” come close to this kind of desolation when it comes to metal from this era.
Only the two last tracks pass without really adding anything to the album after the veritable hit parade, I used to skip over them as a teenager. But especially closer “Grace” has grown on me as an infernal and torturous way to end an album in sinister noise. Both tracks are also placed so as not to break the general flow of the album.
Highlights would be headbanger classics “N.W.O.” and “Just One Fix”, epic “Scarecrow” and majestic “Psalm 69” with lush choirs interspersed with ugly cock-rock, a one of a kind anthem introducing goth and doom elements to the mix! Oh, and I also got married to hillbilly oddball “Jesus Built My Hotrod”.
This is as good as it gets, an album that stood the test of time!
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