Panzer Ag is like tough, good whiskey. It's rough but clean burning. Dark like tenebrous but just the opposite of that word. Brooding and looming this music defines aggro-industrial on the electro side. Distortion armors the punching, stabbing beats, which sometimes so fill the audio field that melody is unnecessary. Yet it sounds distant, but in the same way that the churning machinations of a giant wall shaped spaceship would sound distant as it bears down on your tiny probe in the depths of space. Scary. Good.

Gothelectro welding experiments, PNE's music is starchy and forceful without raw agression. Even the all-German lyrics don't detract from the experience for a wordsmith who likes to know what his CDs are saying to him. That's how marvelous PNE's delectable sound inventions (i.e. songs) are. Truly, "Maschinemusik" isn't a title to a CD. Rather, it's a label, an alert, an important piece of hey-I'm-telling-you-what-you're-about-to-be-hearing. One wonders ... is it possible the creator of these pieces is sentient artificial life? Has Vger (pronounced Vee-jer) changed careers? (Ask Spock. He might know.) Dark. Yet funky. In a way shamelessly poppy pieces of wannabe new wave back in the 80s. Or in a way real new wave was, with at least the wrapper of that decades bubble gum. Yet so assimilated (you thought my theory about the artist was paranoid too) like a motherfuckin' Borg that it's there, yet it's not.

"Document Three" features London based bands Naevus and Knifeladder. Both provided three tracks each on this 500 limited edition copies on cd in a PVC black box. Naevus is a dark neo-folk trio who opens the cd with their cover version of "Less Queer", a comedic murder ballad by American singer/songwriter David E. Williams. The song is very well arranged for acoustic guitar, accordion and a swifty deep dark bassline. The second track "The Devil", which is my best favorite, is a narrative tale telling about half remembered drunken events. The lyrics had me tripping so hard, I couldn't get the song out of my head.

Knifeladder is an industial three piece band who have an electronic old school sound that's more experimental and noise like with tribal rhythmic that's more sinister with vocals. Track "Retina (Last Gasp Edit)" starts off with a noise feel then breaks down to a post-punk industrial that have a feedback bass. "Oblivion (Anti-Valium remix)" sets the standard ground of having a experimental electronic noise that have a sense of annihilation in despair to chaos with harsh vocals. Knifeladder brings the degree of intensity and many experimentations to their music that will interest industrial fans.

It's tough to decide if BYTET is under-produced amateur electro or if BYTET's work is the product of some sort of geek genius. It's true the music smacks of the electronic musical wranglings of a bedroom DJ but it's also true there's a certain indie, quirk appeal to BYTET's unique craftings. Then there's that part ... yeah, this stuff is fairly unique in musical personality. Eclecticism marks this collection of BYTET's work, with flavors ranging from minimalist electro/electro-industrial to restrained post-modern electro-tribalsong. The vocals are thin and feel like they were sort of mixed in sideways. (This is part of BYTET's style that befuddles me, incidentally.) There's no getting around the fact that these are amateur recordings that lack a certain polish and crispness. However, there's also a certain appeal to BYTET's music. I suspect that his target audience - and I do believe he has one - will be rabid electro freaks into the weird/indie/underground/pseudo-experimental area.

Compressed Infinity is a Sydney Australian one man project which began in 1998. 'Phase Formation' is the sophomore release featuring 14 tracks of electronica, electro-industrial, darkwave and EBM. Utilizing mostly harsh electro and trance elements, this project is dark with an introverted sense of melancholic inquisition. Musically the compositions are smooth and easy to listen to. Softer than some electro but harsher than any Sythnpop. An interesting and unique project that could use at least a bit more variance and some vocal modifications, as some tracks the vocal textures stand out a bit too much. However, this shows all the hallmarks of a likely future contender in the electro music industry. Musically it's much cleaner and produced than many of the self-starters one usually finds and has a wide array of variance in styles and techniques. The album varies from instrospective to a confusing array of off-kilter rhythmic techniques that are sometimes danceable and oftentime dreary and bleak. However, some of the tracks, or just parts of them, might come off rather amatuerish. This release does not have the professional polish it needs to get true recognition and stands out in my mind as yet another example of the overpopulation of would-be musicians in the current associated music scene.