For some time now, I’ve been awaiting the rebirth of really good
\nindustrial music. Front 242 had their moments, but it’s been some
\ntime since they set my eardrums on fire. Ministry – can’t really
\nexplain what’s happened to them. Last time I got excited over
\nanything like this, it was the Trent Reznor-voiced cover of Black
\nSabbath’s “Supernaut” – and that was some time ago.<\/p>\n
But into the void steps Seattle’s Rorschach Test, a band I had
\nthe pleasure of seeing in concert earlier this month. Of the five
\nacts that took the stage that night, I couldn’t believe what I was
\nseeing or hearing. Keyboardist Troee looked like he was either
\ndoing pushups over his keyboards or was humping them. The guitar
\nduo of Benjamin Anderson and Kristopher Geren provided shred after
\nshred, while vocalist James screamed like his manhood was being
\nburned off with a blowtorch.<\/p>\n
It was a rebirth for me – and their recent release
\nUnclean<\/i> captures almost all of the ferocity with a
\nsurprisingly clean sound.<\/p>\n
From the beginning, you know you’re in for an interesting ride,
\nwith “Satan” and “Elvis” pummelling you into submission. I almost
\nexpected a little more bass on this – then again, I’m getting tired
\nof replacing speakers in the Pierce Archives every time someone
\nputs “bass in the face” and burst the Bose. “Elvis” is an
\nespecially interesting track, with James blaming the late rock
\npioneer for damn near every bad thing in the world: “Look what you
\nstarted, Elvis \/ Surely there will be hell to pay. \/ You stole our
\nmorals and you led the whole damn world astray.”<\/p>\n
The nihilistic view of life is clearly seen in tracks like
\n“Wheel Of Misfortune,” where James sings such pleasantries as,
\n“Congratulations, you’ve just won the right \/ To a meaningless,
\nminiscule life \/ Full of disappointment and pain \/ At no extra
\ncharge.” And while hearing songs like these on
\nUnclean<\/i> serve to purge you of any negative feelings you
\nmight have at the time, you almost wonder if James believes what
\nhe’s saying – he delivers the goods with such intensity and raw
\npower.<\/p>\n
Rorschach Test manage to keep the energy level incredibly high
\nfor almost the entire album – losing ground only on the last two or
\nthree songs. “Hold” and “Clean” don’t live up to the rest of the
\nalbum, and I question what we needed an additional mix of “Elvis”
\nfor, but these songs don’t put that big a dent in the whole album.
\nNot when you have tracks as strong as “Cripple Touch”, “Song For
\nOther Me” and their cover of Berlin’s “Sex” to toss you back into
\nthe mosh pit. (I would have liked information on who the female
\nvocalist was on “Sex” – the liner notes don’t provide much detail.)
\nAlso worth noting is the production hand of Neil Kernon, who seems
\nto provide the “alarm clock” that wakes up the band’s sound.<\/p>\n
And if you start to take Rorschach Test too seriously, don’t –
\njust because they have a song on
\nUnclean<\/i> entitled “Blow Up America” doesn’t mean it’s time to
\npull a Timothy McVeigh on anyone. Two words: chill out.<\/p>\n
Rorschach Test is still a very young band (and the guys I talked
\nto from the band were incredibly nice), and if
\nUnclean<\/i> is a sign of things to come, then the world of
\nindustrial rock should be getting very excited indeed. Even with
\none or two dents in the armor, this is one incredible disc that
\nbegs you for repeat listens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7346],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38862","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-rorschach-test","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38862"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38862"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}