Album: "People As Prey" (1999)
Label: TCM
Style: Heavy industrial
Songs: 10

Reviewed by: Darklight

Cat Rapes Dog is a band that gets worse, instead of better, with each new release, and I can’t imagine them getting much worse than this. It’s really a shame to see a band that use to create some rather quality and entertaining music now put out mediocre material like this.
      The music is more rock now than ever before with guitars, bass and drums covering up the electronic programming and synths. It’s hard to believe that this actually use to be a pure electronic EBM band only a short while ago.
      The vocals are primarily male now with only slight additions of female singing from time to time. So even the dual male/female vocal edge that the band once had is basically gone now.

The lyrics in most of the songs here are some of the worst I’ve ever heard in any genre of music. While this band has always had rather tongue-in-cheek lyrics, they were still rather meaningful with a point to be made. But the lyrics offered in these songs are just immature and stupid.
      There is a note included in the CD’s book that says “By disliking this recording and giving it bad reviews, you thereby acknowledge that you have a substantial lack of education and that you have not understood anything at all of what we are about”. First of all, if a band has to include this sort of note with their CD, there’s a problem. Secondly, I know exactly what the band is about. They’re about recording some of the most childish and foolish industrial music the scene has ever heard.
      The really sad thing is that this band can indeed make quality music, and the singers are both quite good. It’s too bad that they have chosen to ignore their obvious talents and have instead wasted it on music such as this.

There is, on occasion, songs that actually come off sounding somewhat serious with real meaning and decent lyrics such as “How The Country Falls”, “For The Love Of God”, “Doomed” and “People Love Me”. But this is rare, and the other extremely bad songs ruin anything even remotly interesting here.
      One of the most ironic songs here is “Age Of Crap”. The band gives the description “Aren’t you amazed at what’s in the charts? We thought music was a form of art”. I could have accepted this statement from them a couple of albums back, but not now. Because all they’re doing now is making simplistic straight forward industrial rock/metal music that isn’t creative or original in the least.

Unless you’re a big fan of bands such as The Electric Hellfire Club, I would suggest that you pass on this Cat Rapes Dog CD.

Reviewed by: Darklight

I was very impressed with Cat Rapes Dog's previous release, and I am equally impressed with this follow up. This is quite a change of pace for the band. While I can recognize some of the older elements of their music in here, there are plenty of new things added to indeed make this album sound a lot different from any of their pervious work. Every track here sounds different. Not just by a little, but by a lot. Everything still sounds like it goes together and that it's done by the same band, but at the same time still sounds a lot different. While the band is still very electronic with great uses of sequencing, programming, sampling and synths; heavy guitar is very apparent in these songs as well. A lot more than in their last effort. While this might scare some of you away from this release, let me assure you that it fits in perfectly and these songs wouldn't work without it. From this band's name you know that they don't want to be taken too seriously. However, I feel that they get a bit too silly on this album. The lyrics in almost all of these songs are blunt and rather pointless. Most bands have a message, but not this band. They are just having fun. But the problem is that the music isn't fun. It's very serious, dark, heavy and aggressive. So while at first you might think you're listening to some really intense songs, once you learn what the lyrics are saying you look at everything a lot differently. The song "Capitalist Punishment" is about a rich snob driving his fancy German automobile recklessly in turn being killed in a car wreck. "Motorman" is about an unattractive horny man that can never get laid, so he has sex with whatever he can find around his house including his car. "Key To Success" is about a kid that is a brat and has fun hurting animals and ends up killing his parents. "Something I Ate" is about a guy that ate some foul food and became ill from it. "A Friend Of Mine" is about white middle class teenagers that become satanic for image. "World's Fair" is about how the world seems to be unfair to the creative, artistic and motivated while the puppet sheep followers get everything. A couple of these songs do have good messages, but their humorous lyrics kind of take away from them. There are a few tracks here that do have well written lyrics such as "Human Remains", "Down And Out", "Mark Of The Devil", "Workers Of The World" and "Liquids Of My Life". These songs tend to be a little better because of that aspect. But I will admit that while the lyrics seem a little childish at times, the music is really well done here. There is a lot of creativity and diversity that make these songs really aggressive and rock with a powerful edge. This is fairly heavy industrial music with a dance floor punch as well. Most of the tracks do have accented growling male vocals, but a few are sung with beautiful female singing. This adds even more variety to the songs delivered here. The bottom line is that these songs are really good, even if the lyrics are a bit silly at times. If you like heavy industrial music with guitars and a blend of both male and female vocals, you will enjoy this album.

Reviewed by: Darklight

This is a fairly aggressive electro industrial band that produces fast paced and energy packed music for the dance floor as well as the mosh pit. The rhythms and beats are constructed with hyper electronic programming, harmonic synths, drum machines, and even some sampled guitars. The vocals are primarily a deep accented growling male. But there is also a very beautiful female singer that duets on some songs, and takes center stage on the incredible "Dead Boys Don't Say No". Each and every song on this album is extremely catchy, and will make you move the instant they begin. Each song does have vocals, and I really like the lyrics in them. My only complaint with this album is that I would have liked more songs with the female singer doing the lead vocals. But there isn't a bad song to be found here. They are all great. If you're a fan of electro industrial music, this album is a must.