Formed by the ex Kamikaze 52 member Alexandar Goldmann, Lola Angst take the melodic approach of that band just to change it into a more danceable and catchy key. By listening to the three original tracks contained into the AM I DEAD? MCD ("Am I Dead?", "You let me kill" and "No fear of life") you can immediately notice the commercial potential of those tunes. This doesn't mean that this is the only thing you can appreciate of the Lola Angst project but for sure behind the cool sounds (mainly analog as far as I can hear) the song format has got its importance for Alexandar. Musically it's like to listen to a sort of Marilyn Manson / Front 242 hybrid: the main track is a killer one and you can imagine it at the top of the charts in no time. The other two original tunes are good ones but they impressed me a little less, maybe because it's hard to compete with "Am I dead?". Along with these tracks you can also find two remixes of the main track, reworked by The Scandals and Loom. The first one don't change that much the original one (it changes a little the sounds using a sampled guitar and acoustic drum sounds) while the "Loom Remix" gives to it an electro industrial treatment that it is interesting. For both the remixes, I have to say, that they don't succeed into having the energy of the original version. The MCD anticipate the album which will be ready on August 2005.

Anglo-Italian veterans of all kinds of Industrial noise, XP8 emerged after their previous group, Retina, called it quits. Now, collaborators Marco Visconti, Marko Resurreccion and Paul Toohill bring a staggering variety of influences and experience to the table. As much of a stickler as I am for originality, when their description lists everybody from Bauhaus to ClockDVA to the Chemical Brothers to Coil to VNV Nation, I see no problem with that, because on this 15-track CD, XP8 combines them all--I mean ALL--and makes it work.I can't really understand why they felt the need to put out a "Remastered USA Version" of this disc, but make no mistake, it hits hard and fast and gets the job done. It opens with the sound of an orchestra tuning up, and then goes ballistic from there. All the aforementioned musical sources come to fruition in each track, if mostly using an anthem formula. The lyrics, too, have just the right balance of poetic meanness versus dancefloor-mandated simplicity to get the message across. This "Remastered USA Version" has a bonus track, "Your Heat," that goes: "I don't need your mind to make me complete,/So open your legs and give me your heat." Ironically (and unfortunately, for us guys) over here in the Land of the Free, using that as a pick-up line will not get you very far, but that alone scores points with me on sheer balls. Is this an essential part of your dancefloor arsenal, you ask? I think it is.

Listening to a Peppermints record (and also attending to one of their gig, I think) is an experience you might remember for positive or negative reasons. It depends by your tastes, as always. JESUS CHRYST is their second album and their chaotic rage made me remember a lot of west coast punk bands of the eighties (Fear, Dead Kennedys, etc) as well as the first musical experience of Lydia Lunch which with the Teenage Jesus And The Jerks incarnated the primitive rage of the young N.Y. musical scene. The Peppermints, to me, sounds like those bands even if musically they seem more like a punk version of the Manson Family. The visual aspect and their sound made me think about them as futuristic hippies that blend all the expressions of freedom of the past just to give their version. By listening to them you could think about the Bikini Kill but in my opinion the Peppermints have nothing to do with no kind of movements (even if three out of four members are women). Just an expression of rage? Not properly. Maybe a will to refuse all the categories and to embrace the excess.

Battery Operated are a group who consist of musicians, video producers and web designers. They have been working together since 2000 when they met in Melbourne, Australia. Made up of Tomkz (sound), Wade Walker (sound) and Beewoo (video) the group reached their fourth studio album and with this they also made an ambitious project. RE: CORD is a multimedia project which consist of a CD and a video DVD. For the whole project Battery Operated used different collaborators (BCD, Richard H. Kirk, Mathias Delplanque, Freiband, Kurt Ralske, Identification, Digital Cutup Lounge, Kim Ki-Chul, Sachico. M, Gate and Pretty Boy Crossover). They sent to each of them (forming a chain mail) a black box of an aircraft and asked them to use it and to send back their favourite conspiracy theory in form of sounds, visuals or writings. When the group received back the various pieces they used them to do their own remix album based on those sounds. On the DVD you can find the ten original tracks along with visual works by Emma Mcrae, Beewoo and the collaborators themselves (videos or images). Musically the CD sounds like an ambient / electronic glitch album made of different sounds/moods. Interesting and creative but, in my opinion, enriched by the whole creative steps and by the DVD which take back the recordings to their basic form (more experimental than the final result). On the DVD you can also find the whole reference material (visuals, writings, etc) that made all this possible. Really interesting: it's like having an installation at home!

If you are thirsty for noise and you aren't afraid to listen to hard core music influenced by other rock contaminations (such as Neurosis, Tar, Jesus Lizard, etc) the Marypoppers / Chevignon split is a chance to be satisfied. The four Marypoppers tracks are liberatory screams which mix the free jazz / hc spirit with impetuosity. Chevignon remember me the Japanese way of doing hc music with stops and go but with different noise inserts that remember me the early Tar or some tracks of the early Jesus Lizard (especially on "Moustache" where the guitar arpeggios duet with the tension of the vocals). There isn't a particular track I liked most because the granitic approach to music make of this 10" a way of free your tension. Let loose your articulation and dance without caring of your room! From Lyon for your pleasure...