Long-established industrial and cyberpunk band’s ninth album is the second in a planned “Hexe Trilogy”, after “Bang Operative” which was reviewed here last year. Despite lyrically being written prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, there’s clearly still plenty for the Chicago-based act to get angry about, because even compared to their previous output, this is a fast, hard, aggressive album centred around seething frustrated lyrics full of non-specific politics, fury and imperative.
“Eat The Children”’s lyrics aiming “fuck you”s at various targets and with lines like “it’s my right to breathe so get my hands off my throat”, which if it was written before George Floyd’s death, was horribly prescient. There are somewhat more generalised and cyberpunk-familiar themes of social control, defiance against submission to “the system” and so on. Besides a fairly liberal use of the word “hate” and swearing, there are more metaphor-driven lyrics encompassing The Woodsman and Vikings and some interestingly oblique references to fairy tales and monsters. Although I imagine it was tempting, individual politicians or incidents are generally not cited- but it’s not hard to imagine that many of these tracks are responses to certain events. Social commentary is the dominant theme, but there are a couple of exceptions- such as the more sinister and sexual “Hot Machine”.
This is all set over fourteen rigid cyberpunk tracks full of distorted drums, angry biting bass noises, and glitched guitar-like noises. It’s a familiar formula for the band, and for the most part it doesn’t throw up many surprises, but there are some little treats and production touches in there to give at least a little variety. Examples include the interesting throwback to early Prodigy-esque rave noises in “Happy Little Coma” and “Someone Else”. Like later Prodigy albums though, an entire album listen can be quite a tiring experience due to a lack of variety or interlude in tone. There are some slightly softer moments, such as the decidedly Depeche Mode-ish “Easy” and the darker final track “All Puppet No Master”, but for the most part it’s a fitting reflection of modern times and modern listening styles where these tracks are more likely to turn up as individual items on a playlist than as a whole album, with the typical song length of four minutes quite generous in the expectations of modern listeners’ attention spans.
A few of the counter-culture tropes do feel a little bit threadbare due to overuse now- for example I can’t comment on the uncensored never-on-YouTube videos created for each track and only available as a VHS tape direct from the band. But nevertheless this is still high quality cyber- and electro-punk with a strong heart and high production values. Roll on the third part of the trilogy. Given the state of the world at the time it must be getting written in, I sense it might end up being even more angry than this.
“Eat The Children”’s lyrics aiming “fuck you”s at various targets and with lines like “it’s my right to breathe so get my hands off my throat”, which if it was written before George Floyd’s death, was horribly prescient. There are somewhat more generalised and cyberpunk-familiar themes of social control, defiance against submission to “the system” and so on. Besides a fairly liberal use of the word “hate” and swearing, there are more metaphor-driven lyrics encompassing The Woodsman and Vikings and some interestingly oblique references to fairy tales and monsters. Although I imagine it was tempting, individual politicians or incidents are generally not cited- but it’s not hard to imagine that many of these tracks are responses to certain events. Social commentary is the dominant theme, but there are a couple of exceptions- such as the more sinister and sexual “Hot Machine”.
This is all set over fourteen rigid cyberpunk tracks full of distorted drums, angry biting bass noises, and glitched guitar-like noises. It’s a familiar formula for the band, and for the most part it doesn’t throw up many surprises, but there are some little treats and production touches in there to give at least a little variety. Examples include the interesting throwback to early Prodigy-esque rave noises in “Happy Little Coma” and “Someone Else”. Like later Prodigy albums though, an entire album listen can be quite a tiring experience due to a lack of variety or interlude in tone. There are some slightly softer moments, such as the decidedly Depeche Mode-ish “Easy” and the darker final track “All Puppet No Master”, but for the most part it’s a fitting reflection of modern times and modern listening styles where these tracks are more likely to turn up as individual items on a playlist than as a whole album, with the typical song length of four minutes quite generous in the expectations of modern listeners’ attention spans.
A few of the counter-culture tropes do feel a little bit threadbare due to overuse now- for example I can’t comment on the uncensored never-on-YouTube videos created for each track and only available as a VHS tape direct from the band. But nevertheless this is still high quality cyber- and electro-punk with a strong heart and high production values. Roll on the third part of the trilogy. Given the state of the world at the time it must be getting written in, I sense it might end up being even more angry than this.