3teeth is a strange band from L.A. At first, they seem to play an interesting mixture of both industrial metal a la Rammstein and some more classic sounds like Skinny Puppy or Front242. But this attitude towards classic industrial acts is mixed and integrated with mystic arrangements, samples, atmospheres and vocals. This mystical part of the album reminds me Aesthetic Meat Front. The result is amazing. The vocals should be mentioned first: the guy is pretty good in providing modulations, reverb and the like, but he is also pretty good in changing the style of singing according to the effect. Spoken worlds, screaming and similar stuff. Paradigmatic of vocalist's skills are 'Master of Decay' and 'Chasm'. 3teeth usually structure their songs around a quite martial drum and a nice line of bass. Next some essential metal-like guitars are added and, within this slow march, vocals play their role. Best example of this type of march is 'Pearls 2 swine'. Toward the end of the album songs become faster, like 'Eradicate' or 'X-day'. The final song ('Too far gone') closes the album with some strange dreamy atmosphere. Overall the album is awesome, also because it is the debut album as far as I understood. Therefore there is ample room for improvement. Highly recommended.

Mechanimal is a post-something band from Athens. I say 'post-something' not with ironic tone'¦on the contrary, it is difficult to say exactly what kind of music t'Secret Science' is. Mechanimal define their music as 'drone 'n' roll', but I don't think that this label is able to capture the variety of this music. I would say that this work is full of synthetic sounds, krautrock (as they say), but also darwave, some gothic stuff, and of course drone. The album can be ideally divided in two parts. The first part (the first five songs) is influenced by certain EBM, with a fantastic dark wave touch. The vocals should be mentioned: it is mostly spoken words, but with a low tone which reminds me Peter Steele. Better, the vocals is in the middle between Death in June and Type o' Negative. Probably 'we come alive' is the best song of the first part. It is really a piece of art early Depeche Mode-style and a nice interplay between a vocoder and that Type o' Negative vocals. Moreover, the guitar is wisely arranged. The second part of the album is more atmospheric. See for instance 'The Den', organized around atmospheric pads not easy to distinguish, giving a sense of 'auditory fog'. The last song ('Down in the basement') is probably the best one, and it is a sort of summary of the entire album: atmospheric and dance-oriented at the same time. Overall, 'Secret Science' is a nice album, and Mechanimal has clearly the potential for developing an original and full-fledged new hybrid at the intersection of multiple styles.

I think I'm falling in love with Margaret Chardiet. The first time I heard about Pharmakon was last year. Listening to 'Abandon' a myriads of thoughts came into my mind, but the core message was 'this is fascinating'. Now Pharmakon is back with a new album called 'Bestial Burden'. For those who don't know, Pharmakon is the power-noise/death-industrial/whatever project of Margaret Chardiet, a woman from NY. This album, as far as I understand, has been conceived during Margaret's long stay in a hospital, for some medical emergences occurred just before her first European Tour. Somehow the album has an aseptic touch, distinctive of hospitals. The structure of her songs is actually very simple: a monotone sinister pad, an essential almost-martial drum section, another pad doing a macabre and, again, essential melody, some noises here and there, and finally her voice. The expertise of this amazing girl are vocals. She screams, she speaks, she laugh, she cries, she vomits. Rarely I had the fortune to listen to such amazing pieces of screams. It reminds me a perfect integration between Roger Karmanik and Marco Corbelli. This album is a masterpiece of death industrial, and I can't wait to listen to future Pharmakon's developments. Highly recommended.

Raison d'être, the most famous Peter Andersson's project, is back with a new full length album, published by Transgredient Records. I think this is the first full length not published by Cold Meat Industry (RIP). I don't want to be bold, but I think it is the best Raison d'être album so far. 'Mise an Abyme' is not something new in the Raison d'être discography, but it is the perfect mix of three intense experiences (The empty hollow unfolds, Requiem for abandoned souls, and Metamorphyses). The album is a long four-tracks descent into the abyss.
The first track is Abyssos. It starts with a pad embedded in a structure which is a classic Raison d'etre: a descendent melody, rightly reverberated, and a background of industry noises. Then some choirs are added as well as a strange and strident noise (which actually is another pad). Noises and pads keep on growing, capturing the listener into an immense storm of sounds.
The second track is called 'Infernos'. Noises of various sorts (introducing the song) remind me of a structure, like a wrecked bridge, that someone is crushing down. At minute 5, the song seems to stop and a pad enters slowly, with the usual Raison d'etre fade-in giving the perception of sounds coming from nowhere. Then the songs literally explodes with dissonant choirs and a orchestra of noises. Noises forming an actual rhythm (really an orchestra!) is probably Raison d'etre best achievement in 'Metamorphyses' and here it is developed at its best. The song reaches its acme at minute 10 when another pad, with low tones, break the atmosphere and it grows with the noises orchestra for four long minutes.
The third track is 'Katharos' ('pure'). This starts with a bell and a choir - it looks like a sort of 'Slow Ascent' of 2014. Then the choir merges with the usual fantastic pad. There is then a continuous emerging of choirs that then dissolve in pad - it is the expertise of Peter Andersson and the brand of Raison d'être.
The last track is more similar in style to Requiem for Abandoned Souls, in particular for the use of strange oriental choirs which is overlapped with a classic choir old style. The result is remarkable since they seem to form a unique incredible sound. The album then closes with the usual crescendo and a long last minute of fade out.

To sum up, 'Mise an Abyme' is a synthesis of the best works of Raison d'être and, as emphasized at the beginning, I think it is its best album so far. Highly recommended.

Christopher Willits is a US musician and artist from San Francisco. He is an expert in the technical aspects of electronic music (he hold a master degree in that subject)
'Opening' is a long ambient and drone album. It is a peculiar piece of art as the album is complemented with an abstract film with visual shots from California, Hawaii, Japan and Thailand. Coming back to music, the album has everything that an ambient work of this kind should have: long and deep pad playing fantastic melodies, choirs here and there, and some sweet noise to arrange and enrich the atmosphere. In some occasions ('Clear', 'Connect' ) there are also guitars which make the atmosphere more and more dense. What I do really enjoy is the openness of the sound that, while being minimalistic, it avoids the empty and tedious moments that ambient/dark ambient extremely minimal works usually have. Probably the only flaw of the album is the rhythm part, as the sound chosen are not at the same quality level of the atmosphere. More to the point, I expect something more from a professional musician in the electronic field: drums sound really like the kind of sound banks you might find in cheap Roland's electric pianos. Apart from this, the album is a great piece of art, and I look forward to listen more from Willits in the next future.