Institution D.O.L. are back. If you love power electronics/death industrial and all that, you know what I’m talking about. Institution D.O.L. is the project of Barbie B. & Meta Dolor. The album is called “Our Love Can Destroy This Whole Fucking World” and it is definitely an album that will become very important - eventually a classic - in extreme music. Institution D.O.L. look as passionate as musicians exploring a new type of music, but they have also 20 years of experience, so the result is just perfect - experience and passion. The album has been recorded in 3 different countries over 3 years, so you may get also an understanding of the character traits of the musicians involved - patience is what can transform good music into great music.
The tracks are elegant and, from a point of view, simple. I do not mean simple as simplistic, but simple in the sense that Institution D.O.L. does not just put together as many sounds as possible just to create unbearable noise - they are no noise tourists.
A few songs are more ‘traditional’ in the sense of power electronics typical of Genocide Organ, Grey Wolves, or similar acts. I have in mind songs such as “We are the black ones”, which is a noise wall standing in the background and generated with samples but also expert use of synthesizers, complemented with a voice shifting between spoken words and screams. Another example is “You are all lost”, which plays smartly with synths parameters to create a feeling of discomfort - the excellent vocal performance completes the song (sometimes screaming, sometimes growling, sometimes talking). “In dust and death” is a little bit different - a very acid synth create a sort of martial rhythm complemented by a very angry voice - noise and sounds of a crowd in the background.
But other songs are different - “Invocation”, Abschlachtung”, and the closing song are what Institution D.O.L. define a sort of ‘deathscape’. They have elements of the other songs, but they also create a dark and dense atmosphere by adding laments, pianos, nice and elegant pads, organs. The last song is particularly cool. The beginning is a walk towards the perfection of death industrial, but suddenly, an elegant pad enters softening the tense (and dense) atmosphere. A delicate melody is complemented by an angry and distorted voice. But it’s not over, since in the middle of this very long song (12 minutes or so), there is also space for a delicate piano, playing a melody that, after you have experienced the entire album, is really an invitation to vanish and die.
The choice of the order of the songs is also smart - you do not have the power electronics first, and then the more ‘relaxed’ songs (or viceversa). You have a mix. By listening to this album, you shift between states of fear, fury, and mystery. And that is exactly what you should expect from genuine extreme music.
To sum up, the year 2019 has started in the right way for the fans of extreme industrial music.

I confess it’s the first time that I hear about Kj, also known as Kj Rottweiler. By looking at the website, it seems that Kj is not only a musician, but a video maker as well. The album ‘Spells’ has been produced by the label Lost Tribe Sound. I confess I have never heard of this label either, but it looks certainly a very interesting one - the type of label that produces whatever the owners like, with well-curated packagings (as it’s the case with ‘Spells’).
However, I’m very disappointed at this album, despite very good reviews I read. How do ambient/dark ambient/drone albums usually work? What are their aims? I have been listening to this kind of music for a long time (almost 20 years), and the best albums are the ones that completely absorb you. Here are my two cents. You absorb someone else into your music by creating a sort of evolution of the song leading to a climax (and back again!): you start with a layer of sound, and then you fade in other layers, and while you have the new ones, you may subtract others. It can be dark ambient, new age, minimal, or whatever: I think the concept is exactly this. This is why ambient’s songs tends to be pretty long - it is exactly to create this suspence. But this is not necessarily the case: there are pretty good artists who can do with short songs.
What about ‘Spells’? This album is composed of brief songs (with some exceptions - more on this later). These songs are usually made of a couple of layers of sound - mostly pads, reverberated, creating the typical wide and open perception of ambient music. However, there is no construction, there is no evolution. Sometimes I had the impression of listening to only excerpts of the actual songs - when you want to introduce the listener to your album, and you made him/her listen to the songs when they have reached the climax. The only exceptions are the songs Dawyn and Spells. Interestingly, these are the longest songs.
What I want to say is that this album has amazing and well-curated sounds. However, it lacks structure and evolution - and I think structure and evolution are of paramount importance to ambient music. Without structure and evolution, it is very difficult to be absorbed by the music.

Introducing at length Institution D.O.L. shouldn’t be necessary. For those who love industrial music it is a very well-known name, but Chain DLK has readers from very different types of electronics music. Institution D.O.L. is the creature of Barbie B. (joined by Meta Dolor in 2016). He has been pretty active between 1998 and 2008 and then, for some reasons, he quitted all musical activity until 2014. He hold collaborations with very famous acts such Wertham and Stahlwerk 9, but I would say that probably Institution D.O.L. are more known than them. This is a very important project in the scene, and it has inspired dozens of other acts. Institution D.O.L. plays its own specific type of industrial music, which is a perfect balance and combination of extremely violent power electronics and obscure dark ambient. This is a type of music that requires talent and experience. Barbie D. has both.

‘Exzess’ is (as far as I know) Institution D.O.L.’s newest album. This is the type of album that strikes you as a thunderbolt the first time you listen to it, because it has impact. Sometimes albums with impact become pretty boring after few days, but this is not the case with Exzess. Listening after listening you discover new sounds, new particulars that escape at first. This album is a perfect combination of dark ambient and noise/power electronics. Everything in this album is extremely well curated: samples, synths, voices, transitions. This album is like an organism: all its parts are discernible, but at the same time they find their own identity just in the whole. Unlike many other industrial albums, this masterpiece is more than the sum of its parts. Example of track delivering perfect transitions and wise integration of different sounds is Silent Night (best track in the entire album in my opinion).’Fallen and furious’ - together with the title-track ‘Exzess’ - is the track that exemplifies this back and forth between noises sounds and atmosphere typical of a certain dark ambient tradition.
‘Exzess’ is a masterpiece of modern industrial music; an album that will soon become a classic in the genre. A classic is not just a must-have, but it is an album that communicates something new and different anytime you listen to it: this is the case of ‘Exzess’

Lingua Ignota (“Unknown language” in Latin) is a project from Rhode Island by Kristin Hayter. As her website says, Kristin is an interdisciplinary artist. In other words, we should expect her music to be inextricably connected with her (visual) arts. I’m no expert of visual arts, so I’ll only judge her music.
“All Bitches Die” is a very ambitious album combining neoclassical music, power electronics and death industrial. To give you an idea of how ambitious this is, I think that the project may be conceived as Roger Karmanik that meets Diamond Galas. And yes, it is amazing as it sounds. However, there are few things that can be improved. Let me explain a little bit.
The four songs included in this album try to merge noise walls and disturbing creaking with elegant neoclassical melodies performed with piano and organ. Kristin’s vocals shift from sacred and liturgical melodies to furious and desperate screams. I hasten to add that Kristin is a classically trained performer, so when I say that there are neoclassical melodies I mean that there is professionalism here, and not just the use of vocal samples or very basic melodies. The result is impressive. Especially “Woe to all” and “All bitches die” are desperately passionate, Kristin’s voice drags the listener into an ocean of despair, but at the same time the neoclassical background makes such desperation something magnificent. Her music is literally apocalyptic, because when I listen to her music I can only think about apocalypse. In other words, the neoclassical part of this album is absolutely amazing, and just for this, one should buy the album via bandcamp.
If the album is so amazing, why only 4 stars rather than 5? Because there are things that can be improved. It’s no big deal at this early stage of Lingua Ignota’s career, but still I should mention some things that other reviews tend to ignore. Something more should be done when it comes to the power electronics part. One may think that power electronics or (since I mentioned Brighter Death Now) death industrial is something easy to do: you just need to make as much noise as you can. This is clearly false. Kristin creates very basic noise walls sometimes enriched with creaks of different sort. However, there is no control ("For I am the light" is a example). Transitions (with the exception of the ones in the song “All bitches die”) may be improved. Creaks seem to be very basic samples (but I might be wrong) and my impression is that they are not processed in the way a noise artist would do. Processing, connecting, uniting and other dozens of things that you can do with samples are, in my opinion, essential in extreme industrial music. Lingua Ignota makes use of power electronics and death industrial resources, but without developing them in a personal way. I notice this especially because in these very days I’m listening to a recent album of a very famous power electronics act (Institution D.O.L.), which is very sophisticated from this point of view. I want to stress that THIS IS NOT a rejection, but a plea for working more on the integration of the two styles, because Lingua Ignota is a project that can become potentially one of the most important act of the scene (whatever the ‘scene’ is).

Steel Hook Prostheses (SHP for short) is a (well-known) heavy electronics/dark ambient duo from Texas.
In this specific experimental context bands have usually quite sophisticated concepts and stories behind their musical and graphical aspects. SHP is no exception. As you can read in several interviews here and there in the immense world-wide web, one of SHP’s member thought about such a peculiar name because of the time he spent in a Veteran’s Hospital, where his mom used to work back in the 1970s. Veteran’s hospitals ain’t ordinary hospitals, and this guy had plenty of time to observe atrocities and disfigured people. Therefore, most of SHP discography is really about medical stuff.
‘Calm Morbidity’ is no exception. A quick look at the songs titles prepares the listeners to a full-immersion into freaks (“Cyclopia”), confusion induced by drugs (“Doused with acids”), uncomfortable sensations (“Paresthesia”), etc. In other words, this album is about everything that can go wrong in the medical context. The ‘heavy electronics’ performed by SHP is not particularly original, but I think that in this genre failing in originality is not necessarily a vice. You have to do a lot of chaos, but you have to be good. You have to find a way to drag the listener into your own nightmares: this is the only important aspect of this music. And SHP are damned good. Their music shifts from a power electronics-based structure (“Hand of glory”, “Piss prophet”, “The medics” and in particular “Strangury”) to dark-ambient (“Doused with acid”, “Paresthesia”, “Sulphur Drip”). The dark ambient I’m talking about reminds me some Cold Meat industry-based acts such as Nordvargr or Necrophorus. But there is something more, like Lustmord (in particular “Purifying fire”) or some stuff produced by Aural Hypnox (Arktau Eos and Zoat Aon). The power-electronics parts are, let me say, more ‘modern’ and elaborated than classic projects in this type of music. The voice is distorted and modified way more than usual (take Genocide Organ to the extreme), but there is not a typical ‘noise-wall’, especially because of the dark ambient inserts and in general because it is really ‘synth-based’ (I would say less analog, more digital, but I might be wrong) rather than just grounded in the use of the typical home-made instruments of the noise scene. As I just said, it is not particularly original, but the way they combine different influences is remarkable. ‘Calm Morbidity’ is everything I can ask from an industrial album; violence and mystery at the same time: a perfect combination of power-electronics and dark ambient. Highly recommended.
I have to mention that this album is produced by Malignant Records. It goes without saying, Malignant Records has become one of the most important label for this type of music. I’m not exaggerating when I say that, if you like power electronics, dark ambient or death industrial more in general, then you can buy any Malignant’s release and you won’t be disappointed.