Search - T.H.D. :: Under a Statik Sky

If THD's good-but-not-great 1998 album, Watz Your Program?, indicated the shape of things to come from this former industrial band, 1999's Under a Statik Sky finally delivers on their promise to escape that genre's rigid strictures and break out into the wilds of what has come to be known as "intelligent dance music." A tour de force of complex rhythms, freaky samples, and atmosphere-soaked synth architecture, Statik displays a confidence and a strength that rivals the late-'90s work of bands like Haujobb and even Front Line Assembly's various electronica-oriented side projects. Think of a darker, more experimental Crystal Method, minus the pop hooks. Funk-drenched drum patterns are festooned with vinyl scratching, noisy sonic bursts, and melancholy synth--as though a gothic-industrial band were doing a credible approximation of acid jazz for a hip-hop audience. They even tackle trance (on the nine-minute-long "TR Generation") and acquit themselves nicely. The butterfly has emerged from its cocoon: behold its beauty. --Steve Landau