Things Outside the Skin are back for their fifth release, "You Knew it all Along." TOtS is Chvad SB (vocals/programming), Blight Productions (bass), and The 1-2-3-4 (drums), interesting names to add to the curiousness of this colorful new release. TOtS’s sound is composed of, basically, dirty gangster rap above spooky and aged sci-fi themes?or, better put, a nightmarish amusement park moving in slow motion.

My first impression about this release was that it would be blatantly evil with not much intrinsic value, however; upon listening and reading the lyrics I was quick to discover this band actually has a healthy(?) sense of humor, and a smart approach to their subject matter that is quickly infectious.

While I’m not a big fan of industrial rap, Things Outside the Skin does an extremely convincing job of merging the two genres, and does it better than most acts I’ve heard. TOtS is not, by any means, limited to rap?as they show an affinity for EBM and touch on a variety of other genres. Regardless your interests, though, TOtS’s violating cover of the Spice Girls’ "Spice up Your Life" alone is well worth any price asked for this album.

I have still the well done appetizer "Exterminate Annihilate Destroy" in my ears but now this talented German act is ready to release their first full length release on their new label Dependent. "Published by stark-n/BMG UFA/Warner Chappell", so I can read on the backside, "The definitively best Electro album of the year" or "10 out of 10 points" are the praising words of two leading German print magazines, which stab in my eyes on a sticker on the front side. So it must be any good, right? Better asked: How can I have doubts?
Well, I have now listened this album 10 to 20 times and I still don’t get what it makes that outstanding that so-called "experts" do make such ridiculous ratings. This release is a classical example of how a band fails to fulfill too big expectations. ROTERSAND are producing Electro-, Synth- or Futurepop music with some stylish acceptable ingredients. There is an unavoidable VNV-inspiring syndrome on this whole album, but only at a very few times this band is able to play in the same league. First main flaw is the turn out bad track list producing nothing else than boredom from track 1 to 5. Track 6, "By the Waters" is more calm, features a nice acoustic guitar, and the melodic content co-operates much better with the vocals and the globally mood. The already mentioned "Exterminate..." is still present here and I get slowly the idea that this album gets better and better on the latter placed tracks. Right, so it is and ROTERSAND can finally pay back some credit of the high expectations with the calm melodic last two tracks "All in All" and moreover "Angels Falling". They have definitively their best moments when they leave their rich studio/producer abilities to concentrate on the essential part, the composition and the perfect collaboration to the music itself. Against to this I like their strong studio abilities they have had proven with mastering works for bands like [:SITD:] or PAINBASTARD. But to produce sounds simply taken out of unadorned Tekkno-inspired productions and to bow them like a Tekkno-DJ on his turntables (very bad examples: "Dare to Live" or "Storm") is without claim or innovation. Also to swim hard along the VNV NATION success formula is a point which this band should avoid on future releases. It is for sure easier to be a good copy then to create something individual, but I hope that they have enough inspiration not to repeat this mistake. ROTERSAND suggest here their talent but they do not reach complete originality. There is enough space to develop, so let’s start here!

Electro/Industrial music makes a step forwards to conquer Eastern European states and sets a mark in Tallinn, Estonia with the debut of CYCLONE B. They are not really unknown and have made some remarkable appearances on highly acclaimed compilations like "Cryonica Tanz Vol. 3" or the quadruple CD box "Endzeit Bunkertracks Act 1". The new Russian label Advoxya Records finally could get the deal with this 3 men outlet and so we have here a 11 track debut release which is – and I can take this realization in advance – one of my personal favorites of this year. CYCLONE B have produced a fine Dark Electro/EBM album which shows the listener with simple but effective means how to create and compose remarkable tracks which surely deal with several already known ingredients. I would qualify and compare this band with the recent works of PAIL and DEPRESSIVE DISORDER but of course without any clone syndrome. Tracks like "Reflection" or "Deathember" are playing skilful with decent melodic synth layers and also the almost distorted vocals show some progression to a more melodic content. Nice and remarkable done, but be sure that this band will not fall into any Futurepop cliche. "Agony" is more slow and filled with a depressive mood, while tracks like "Sputnik U.S.S.R.", "Nothing" or "Razor" will let the rivetheads invading any dancefloor in some dark clubs. Nice to hear are also the variations and progressions on the vocals. There is not the same singer at all, but CYCLONE B have also a fine taste to include some different effects like a vocoder or different kinds of distortion. Here is also no lack of ideas regarding the bass line sequencing, almost everything is filled with inspiration. And so we have a well done CD which can set some standards. This is a marvelous release of a promising band which seems to be soon a giant.

Being a personal project of a Toronto based musician Voytek Iwasiuk, Cysto saw the light in 2004. On his youth Voytek focused his efforts into the study of guitar and into hard rock, jazz and blues. When years after he felt that that way of creating music was kinda stagnating, he decided to convert his analog home studio into a PC based studio where he could create a kind of music more pumping, dancey and distorted. BUILT FOR YOU is the first Cysto album and offers to the electro lovers twelve sincere tracks. Cysto has got good skills about creating energetic tracks, but I think that Voytek should diversificate the vocals on the songs. The sound production is good enough to understand his style, but the sounds aren't always clear and the same kind of vocals isn't helping into the fruitiong of the song. The CD contains good tunes that would need a little more production. If you want to know how Cysto is sounding like, the first name that popped in my mind was Matrix (if you don't count the guitar riffs). Check the first five tracks on Cysto's website and write your impressions to Voytek.

Black Rain in the last couple of years, along with its sister labels NoiTekk, Funk Welten and Ars Musica Diffundere, grew its rooster of bands as well the number of people who is interested into the mixture of industrial e.b.m. music of Noitekk, the goth electronic of Black Rain, the Ars Musica Diffundere apocaliptic folk of Novalis and Kutna Hora or the industrial martialism of Predella Avant and to the ambient electronic music of Funk Welten with Echorausch and Flint Glass. Into the DVD you can find seventeen band videos (most of them are live performances recorded at the Wave Gotik Treffen festival or at the Summer Darkness festival) where you can have a good idea of the music proposed by the labels. Sometimes the audio isn't the top notch (it seems recorded with a good digital camera as well the videos are) but you can have an idea about the music anyway. Along with the videos we have a good extra section where you can find images of the people at the 2004 Wave Gotik Treffen (this is for die hard fans of the festival or for the people who was there), excerpts of Aslan Faction, Grendel and Feindflug performances at the 2002 Maschinensturm festival, a video of Feindflug 2000 tour, the backstage of the same band at the 2000 Wave Gotik Treffen and different galleries of the band with audio tracks.