Search - Imperative Reaction :: Eulogy for the Sick Child

Those who like clean, straight-ahead, competent techno-industrial music need look no further than this debut from Southern California's Imperative Reaction. Sure, the :Wumpscut:-style distorted vocals are fairly hackneyed, but they're overshadowed by the inventive programming and sampling, particularly on the viciously funky "Compressed/Terror," with its razor-sharp beats and menacing Clockwork Orange dialogue snippets, and on the bouncy "Syntax." Reactioneers David Andrecht and Ted Phelps have a strong sense of what elements work well together, and even though their music ends up a tad on the derivative side, it's interesting enough (and dance-floor-friendly enough) to rise above most of the overproduced, muddled industrial music clogging the arteries of the late '90s. A strong start. --Steve Landau