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I X Key | tomorrow | 03/04/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This music is just beautiful. It's very minimal -- too minimal even for the grit that characterized so much of their later music. Most of the songs make use of metal objects for the sounds, but there's also some softer, more watery music. At one point on this cd, they were literally making their music under a bridge, & a train went over. You can hear the train. In 20th century classical music, 2 antithetical compositional ideas were minimalism (which had some feeling of complete control) & aleatory,or just randomness. This cd's minimalism with the train that just happened to go by so they left it seems to me like it could be understood as a synthesis of those 2 views.It's formative music for them, basic & pure, before their creativity demanded that they add more."

THIS IS INDUSTRIAL

J. Brady | PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC United States | 04/16/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Duh...That's why they call it "Industrial"
Harsh,hypnotic, highly percussive, stark, brutal,primitive, repetitive, impossible to resist and undestand ( unless you speak German )experimental, ambient "noise" for the modern age. I listened to this tonight all the way through, and realised how varied it really is. The first few tracks are much more basic, the metallic clang you would expect, but no less because of it. Some of them are quite groovy ( although I almost hate to use that word, it makes you think of disco, and this certainly is not disco - although I'm not slagging dance music ). Drumming on the insides of traffic tunnels, found sounds, distorted vocals.... you get the idea. Then track 9 goes all bubble-gooey, with water and stuff in the background, with truly disturbing, scary chanting and screaming. Then the next song is more "band" sounding, the standard guitar-bass-drums-keyboards, but no less exhilerating. The whole thing is one giant sonic mess, a "stew" , if you will, and that's precisely why it rates five stars. It is at times the heaviest "heavy metal", the most trippy "psychedelic". A true classic."

Strategies against depression

Richard A. Maas | 12/17/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"`back in 88 this stuff sounded so horrible, german kids nihilisticaly banging on dying machinery, but now in my 50s all I hear is their youthful exuberance. Buy this for anyone having problems with depression, it will help them."