Well, look on the cover of this first official full-length of this US-based act – isn’t she-devil Erica Dunham not a real sweetheart? With fake blood on her hands and in her face she really gives you a first impression what you’ll get to hear here. After the signing with Alfa Matrix it took a while until this Seattle-based female-leaded act could get ready with this release. In between there were some nice and highly acclaimed compilation appearances like on "Endzeit Bunkertracks Act 1" or the 5th chapter of the Interbreeding series – and also her pre-released appetizer "Sick Fuck" - to me still her most horrible effort at all! Yep, my expectations were pretty low after this EP and I made myself some scary thoughts of what there would be still to come. Finally Alfa Matrix had the right nose and taste for the musical talent of Ms Dunham and she really surprised me positively with "The Failure Epiphany". The given info sheet describes her as the "female soldier in the SUICIDE COMMANDO league". Sorry, but this fails – it doesn’t end at all with the use of some slight distorted bass kicks to fit with this comparison. Lets call her better as a female Bryan Erickson aka VAC – this would fit with the fake blood, the splatter movie influences, the lyrical content of this whole CD and most especially with the well worked out synth layers and the scary mood they offer. She really impresses me with her dark and depressive synth work, so no real wonder that I prefer her calmer tracks like "Silence" or the marvelous "You Have Fallen From Grace". Of course this CD also features a lot of food to storm the floors of the dark clubs, "Martyr", "Your Nightmare" or "ZombieBoy" can be named here easily. A note also to the sound of the vocals: I had to spin this release 2 – 3 times to find acceptance to her rough distorted, almost alien-like kind of vocal penetration. On some pieces I would wish her for the future to find a cleaner style – to fill in a better balance could be a nice develop. Len Lemeire of IMPLANT has produced this album and it seems that he gets more and more exposure for his studio work – again a very nice and professional work. So you get here a hard-kicking and enjoyable Electro/Industrial album and Erica Dunham will find her place as one of the hardest female-leaded acts. Look also out for some live performances of her if you’re not afraid to deal with blood...

While everybody seems to hail the new and upcoming LEAETHER STRIP DCD, the Belgium label Alfa Matrix has made a fine decision to license the new HEADSCAN CD for the European market from the Canadian label Artoffact. Regarding the given quality of the music of this new and long-awaited "Pattern Recognition", I would like to ask which act deserves the "star" status... Anyway – we have here THE release of this cold winter, a modern, up-to-date and high-end Electro/Industrial album with intelligent undertones! Take some influences from the likes NEGATIVE FORMAT, haujobb. and IMPLANT as a far away reference, plus a lot of own creativity – and this all cannot really explain this phenomena called HEADSCAN. The complexity discovered here simply in the bass lines produces already some eargasms! Their both pre-released tracks from their EP’s, "Dead Silver Sky" and "Lolife" are of course included – but here are almost 5 pieces available which could be called more convincing then the singles! Great stuff to share the motion of the dancefloors are rich included with "Synchrony", "Arrache-Moi" or "Carnal Knowledge", while "Permafrost" or "Antenna Manifold" simply surprise with strange vocal manipulations. The globally futuristic attitude behind the music of these both talented musicians is featured through uncountable thrown in FX samples on almost all tracks, no matter here, that the music often breaks with existing style boundaries between Electro, Techno and Trance. It is always hard to drown in superlatives, but here...? Go out and get it!!!

WYNARDTAGE is the Dark Electro solo effort by Kai Arnold and he stands also behind the label X-Cem. X-Cem can’t be called a real label, it is more a kind of co-operation and the featured bands have to pay themselves for a CD production. WYNARDTAGE’s track "Sterbehilfe" could lately enter some compilations and it received some positive recognition in the clubs. Here on this first official release of this act this track is also available – featured as a hidden bonus track at song position 66. The music is dark Electro/Industrial with mostly distorted lyrics often changing between German and English language and it reminds me a bit on old SUICIDE COMMANDO mixed with early TERMINAL CHOICE influences. The title track is the main piece here, danceable with hard and steady bass kicks and distorted vocals, and it is next to the original version featured in four more remixed versions done by both X-Cem artists MAY-FLY and ACYLUM in a live improvisation, plus also both relatively unknown bands NOSTROM and ENCEPHALIN. The remix of ENCEPHALIN is the best one here and can add several interesting parts to the original – definitively worth to get heard and I have to make a look after this project! Stuff for the dancefloor is also well featured on the track "My Hell (Exclusive Mix)", while most of the further 6 tracks are slowing down the tempo and do more feature a sick and depressive mood. The lyrical content deals mostly with disappointed relations, death or dug abuse – stuff which does not allow to sing about the beauty of live. This CD does well in the mentioned style and it is worth to get checked out. Some slight improvisations on the end master of some tracks wouldn’t be bad, but here it’s real "underground". Give it a try and support the scene.

Here's some friggin' crazy music to kick off the new year: "The Sick Generation" is the new CD by NYC-based Charles Pierce's outlet End, a collection of sixteen electro-rock muzak pieces made up of music samples and references to sixties ez-listening oldies music, surf music, tons movies, tv shows and films and frenzy injections of everything every nostalgic person has memories of. "The Sick Generation" boldly ventures into excotic and historic audio libraries and archives that will make your bootie rock to the funky sounds of vibraphones, organs, horn stabs, orchestral arrangements, sitar, synth pads, trumpets and a bunch of rock drums, guitars, breakbeats, but it does so fearlessly and at a pace that won't allow for enough time to even comprehend what's going on... it's all thrown at you from every direction, shredded, mixed and remixed in a way that is very familiar to drum'n'bass artists and DJ's and making it a very exciting and up-beat record that sounds exceptionally modern for something based partly on such vintage material. The album is really mostly a remix album, featuring the skills of Foetus, The Bran Flakes, Messer Chups, Society Cleaners, Drop the Lime, Jason Forrest, Ning Nong, Duran Duran Duran, Mad/EQ, Hecq. Very original.

Active since early two thousands the band already recorded three EPs and with their FLESH EATING FOUNDATION EP they bring their name to the attention of the goth / industrial electro lovers. Despite the sound, which is a sort of distorted electro industrial, the melodies and Jon Zero vocals are recalling me the Batcave bands of the '80s with a little bit influences of bands like Velvet Acid Christ. The three tracks of the demo are really well released and the high energetic formula of the trio will catch the listener's attention in no time with their mixture of dark, dancey and distorted tunes. They are looking for a label to release their first full lenght. I hope they'll find someone, soon. For me, two thumbs up!