On their first album in seven years, the multinational power electronics band fronted by US legend Mark Solotroff manage to live up to the hype created from their less than prolific release schedule. Punishing, malicious, and appropriately deranged, Bloodyminded proves they have lost none of their potency.
This EP pretty much picks up exactly where last year's fine Man With Potential left off, once again combining furiously thumping house beats with stuttering, skittering noise.  It is more of a tease than a substantial effort though, as it is basically just an amusing dalliance with the 12" single format, consisting of two versions of the title piece and a superior B-side.  Neither quite stands with the best songs on Potential and there is no evidence of a significant stylistic evolution, but Pro Style is an enjoyable distraction to tide me over while I await Swanson's next major work.
It has been a full decade since Drumm's last solo album on Mego (2002's massive and career-defining Sheer Hellish Miasma) and quite a bit has changed in the noise world since then.  While more modest in scope this time around (Relief is a 37-minute EP), Kevin's latest effort shows that an impressive evolution has occurred over those ten years, as he hits the perfect balance between his characteristic howling noise and his infrequently surfacing ambient side.  That comes as no surprise to me at all, but I was pleasantly taken aback by the sheer ferocity of Relief's noisy side.  Drumm is clearly not mellowing with age.
The most striking feature of z.e.l.l.e.'s debut CD is not its exceedingly low volume (barely audible music has become its own genre, so we should all have gotten past that shock by now), but its magnificent use of stereo seperation.
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'Island of Jewels' on the other hand is one of my least favorite LPDalbums. Recorded and released in 1986, it was the first full-lengthalbum recorded with Edward living in Holland and the rest of the groupliving in England. Incidentally, the album seems fragmented andunconnected, while the production seems rather sterile and thin. Theband sounds like a group of musicians not paying attention to eachother, all clamoring for attention without letting each other'sinstruments have a life of their own. It's somewhat painful to listento as the songwriting really isn't bad at all. Songs like "The Shock ofContact" and "Jewel in the Crown" would probably have benefitted from acompletely different recording approach. This reissue is probably oneof my favorite improvements on the other hand. The back cover has beenadopted from black and white images from inside the original gatefoldLP issue, photos have been included as well as lyrics—none of whichwere on the original PIAS CD release.
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