I’m yet to see this film, since I’ve gotten a bit of a theater burnout from having worked and managed one in the past (I totaled easily at least 2 movies a day, some the same ones). Judging from the pics in the sleeve and on the site, though, I don’t think I’d really get into it at all, given the uber-goth atmosphere (no insult to the goths out there, of course, but it’s not always my cup of tea when it’s overdone), bringing back to mind some of those awful films the magazine Propaganda made way back when. I could be wrong, since I’m judging a movie by it’s promo ad, though. I’ll take these songs one by one: (1). Claire Voyant-"Pieces". Got the pleasure of seeing their singer (swoons) as HMB a month or two ago, all I’ve really heard of this group, though. Pretty good little track though, smooth and ethereal without a lot of the vocal showing-off. (2). Diva Destruction-"Talk To Me". Easily one of the worst groups I’ve hear in this day and age, and this songs reflects just how painfully bad, redundant, posturing and bland the group is. *Insert cop voice* Nothing to see here, folks, move on! (3). The Cure-"Doing The Unstuck". Neat little Cure song, what else can we expect from them but good tunes? This one is a bit on the poppy side though, I believe it is one of their earlier songs. (4). Karen Black-"Walking In The Jungle". Good vocals, but the music sounds a lot like Sade. The lounge mood of the whole CD tends to offset the rest of the tracks on this CD, but it is a nice little addition considering. (5). Magenta-"Eccentricity". Silly name for a song, but pretty good track from this group, reminds me of This Ascension with a more driving beat. I actually look forward to hearing more from this group, they show promise. (6). Mechanical Caberet-"Nothing Special". Sounds like Rosetta Stone, not as dancey though. Sounds a little too much like Rosetta Stone..... (7). Claire Voyant-"23 Years". This is a slower song which showcases the vocal aspect in a more traditional way for ethereal, on top of the slow, sliding guitars and lower C chords known so well in ethereal music. Awwwwww those vocals are magic! (8). Karen Black-"I Want A Lip". Slow, boring, still sounding way too lounge. (9). Bauhaus-"Severance". The only "new" Bauhaus song we’ll ever hear, and it’s a cover. Arrrrggggh! But it is a good track though, giving that Peter Murphy edge to a classic Dead Can Dance song. (10). Velvet Acid Christ-"Dilaudid". One of the slower tracks I’ve heard from VAC in a while. Still pretty hard edged, thankfully. This CD could use more hard edged material like this, but that’s just me. I think any CD could use more of an industrial edge a lot of the time. ;-) (11). Apoptygma Berserk-"Suffer In Silence". *Grabs barf bag*. Ughhhhhhhh I’ve learned how to really hate this band since their last CD. I remember the days when they used to be industrial and almost nothing but. Now they’re.....roller rink disco "make the little girls wet" kind of music?! Grothek can’t sing more than one octave, the music sounds like disco, and the lyrics are something Barry Manilow would make after a stroke. Sorry, Apop fans, if I sound harsh but this turn-coating is inexcusable! ;-) (12). Claire Voyant-"Iolite (Francis A. Preve Mix)". Proving the be the stars of this CD, this is a dancey yet dreamy remix of one of their songs. A mix of energetic and dreamy. (13). Sarah Rue-"Voice So Sweet". Ughhhhhh, what kind of limp-wristed whining is this? It’s some folk tune with some bellowing lady caterwauling like Melissa Etheridge. This is not good at all! OVERALL RATING: 7.

Awwwwwwwww, sweet sweet industrial to batter my eardrums into dust! I get a nice shot of the new FLA song, today, and then I turn this beauty on and get layer upon layer of clean yet harsh electro-industrial made ripe for stomping to. I’ve only gotten to hear "Hellraiser", which kind of got me to wondering if they were an industrial group or a club group, considering I only heard it in a club, where they tend to use a lot of bass and such. But this though gets rid of my doubts, showing every song to be a straight ahead, fuck-you-make-it-hurt, blistering industrial assault from beginning to end, influenced clearly by "Caustic Grip"-era FLA, Mentallo And The Fixer, and Kevorkian Death Cycle. A comeback for industrial? With this and the new FLA back to back, I think we may have a comeback in the works! In the meantime, they’ll keep me rivet stomping into the sunset! Rating: 10.

Newest CD single from Brazil’s finest, who’s made also for one of the hardest hitting industrial acts in the last decade. With this one, the hard industrial elements of old are pretty much gone, giving this group some more room to grow and progress with newfound elements of trance, electro and hard electronica. And gone also are the vocal distortions, given way to some light vocal treatments here and there. But the key difference between this dance floor filler and the thousands of backwater acts trying to do nothing more than fill dance floors is the complex amount of layering in the sequences and the complexity of the song in general, with the general layout of the sequences and synth lines changing in a rather fluctuating manner from note to note in a very trance manner. It’s kinda classical sounding when you sit and analyze the key usage and the fingering on the synth lines, actually. It’s not too unlike the kind of manner Deine Lakaien uses their synth patterns as well. The Funker Vogt dance remix is well, dancey, as is to be expected with Funker Vogt, but not straying too far from the original at all, just adding that signature Funker Vogt bass-kick pattern to the mix. A lot fo the CD is based pretty much around the dance floor, but does have a good deal of depth to it versus a lot of what you hear on the dancefloor these days. I’m more into the industrial stuff like "Carcinopest" (one of the CDs I hold up to any industrial band as a major standard) myself, but this is a pretty welcome intro into their electro-dance phase, and a great stage in their growth. Rating: 10.

What do you get if you mix up Liam Lynch’s rants, Nine Inch Nails style industrial rock minus Trent’s often forced warbling of pain, William Burroughs and a sense of DIY aesthetic that makes you think that this could come from a Belmont/Clark type music scene? This would be the bastard child of that mix, creating industrial rock and many other elements in the mix for the thinking man. One moment dancey, the next is kinda like hard rock for the dancefloor, with plenty of DIY midi-fed sequences in between. This is a bit like the step Mr. Reznor should have taken after "Downward Spiral" (which of course came the awful whiny booty-funk of "The Fragile"), with a more fun edge than I think NIN ever had. Not to mention some of the most creative titles in quite a while. Of particular note are Falling Down The Stairs (Scotch and Water Remix),and the Strike Down remix of the title track. Fun fun fun for the goofier side of the industrial rock spectrum! Rating: 10

To say this one is unoriginal would be a understatement, as is alot of music from this FuturePop scene. But this one sounds waaaaayyyyyy too much like VNV Nation, from the beats to the synth and particurally the singer, who sounds like he's listened to way too much of VNV's "DarkAngel". Lacking though is VNV's lyrical prowess and sense of theatrics, which is one of the things seperating VNV from a run of the mill dance group. Only real song of note on here is "Construct", where the synth play has that same old same old FuturePop feel, but oddly sticks to you after a few notes. Everything else to me is that same club music that's grated on my nerves for quite a while, and seems thankfully to be getting backlashed against in favor of angrier, more experimental bands like Hocico. This group is to me simply a pure,all out VNV Nation clone, pure and simple, with nothing to offer after the FuturePop fad goes away. I'd much more recommend VNV Nation or even Assemblage 23 over this. Rating:2.