Album: "Walk The Psycho[path]"
Label: DSBP (2004)
Style: Electro-industrial
Songs: 12

Reviewed by: Darklight

Run Level Zero is now the solo electro-industrial music project of Hans Akerman. Fredrik Solenberg has left the band. But Hans gets along just fine by himself on this Walk The Psycho[path] CD.

As soon as I heard the first track "CNN of Worms" I could tell instantly that Hans had improved as both a musician and singer. There's more maturity to this album in the music development, vocal stylings and lyrics.

This is still traditional RLZ material with energetic layered electronic programming, hard and heavy bass beats, dark melodies and Hans' deep angry vocals. But everything has more of a polish to it with greater sound texturing, more variety in the effects used, and less treated vocals that actually sing.

There's a slightly less dark side to the sound now offering more modern sci-fi electronics and lighter melodies. But this music is still hard, heavy and aggressive. There's a good mix of energetic songs as well as more mid-tempo moods. The album does a good job of delivering a varied collection of electro-industrial songs.

Every song on this album is good. Some stand out more than others, but nothing is bad or out of place. There's not really anything new or different to be heard here, but it's all well done and solid.

Album: "Symbol Of Submission"
Label: DSBP (2001)
Style: Electro-industrial
Songs: 12

Reviewed by: Darklight

Run Level Zero is the electro-industrial project of Hans Akerman and Fredrik Solenberg. The usual ingredients are included on this Symbol of Submission CD such as energetic layered electronic programming, hard and heavy bass beats, haunting melodies and deep angry distorted vocals. However, instead of just making upbeat driving dance tunes, RLZ makes more mid-tempo dreary electro-industrial songs with a dark edge. But that's not to say there aren't any club hits here, because there are. They're just not the focus of the album. It's more about deep emotions and less about making you want to get up and move.

This is fairly angry and aggressive music with a powerful punch delivered by both the music and vocals. There seems to be a fetish sex theme throughout most of the album with songs about bondage and S&M. Some lyrics are written better than others, but they're all fairly good for the most part. The movie samples in the songs are nice choices and well placed.

A lot of the songs sound rather similar, but this keeps the album consistent from beginning to end. If you like dark powerful electro-industrial music, this CD is a must.

Album: self-titled
Label: n/a (2000)
Style: Electro industrial
Songs: 8

Reviewed by: Darklight

Run Level Zero creates rather raw and harsh industrial music that blends noisy electronics, guitars, drum programming and growling distorted vocals. The overall vibe of the music is dark and angry. I personally feel that it sounds a lot like Suicide Commando. It has the same cold feel to it. The songs that stand out the most on this CD are "The Battle of Flies", "My Tormentor", "Suffer Through Culture" and "Cleansing Heat". These four songs are especially good and prove that Run Level Zero has what it takes to go up against the bigger electro-industrial bands out there. I hope that Run Level Zero gets signed to a label soon so that they can polish their music even more and release a full length CD.