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Album: "Super
Cool Nothing" (1998) |
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Reviewed by: Darklight Eric Powell and company return with their heavy and aggressive blend of punk industrial music. While I really enjoyed the previous 16 Volt album "Letdowncrush", I find this release to be a slight disappointment. This album has some really great songs on it, but it also has some really lousy ones as well. The songs that I like include: "Everyday Everything", "Don't Pray", "Moutheater", "The Enemy", "Machine Kit" and "Dead Weight". All of these songs rock with great power, intensity and passion. They kick ass and if the entire album was packed with songs like these this album would have been the best 16 Volt release to date. But the album has some major duds on it as well. The song "Low" sounds like a joke. Eric Powell sings soft and high pitched to some repetitive synth-pop type music. It's really slow and tame and is completely out of place on this album. The song "And I Go" sounds like the music was taken right out of the classic song "Spirit In The Sky". Actually, this almost sounds like a cover with different lyrics. It's quite lame. The song "At The End" sounds like a Smashing Pumpkins song. One of their slower and more commercial songs that is. It's another song that is out of place on this album. The rest of the songs on the album are decnet, but don't stand out. 16 Volt still proves that they have it in them to make some really great music. But they also prove that they can make some really lame tracks as well. I am hoping that they go back to their roots on their next release and stick with pure angry and aggressive heavy industrial music and don't try to get creative with a bunch of slower more melodic material, because it just doesn't work for them. For the most part this album includes elements of Acumen Nation, Cubanate, Gravity Kills, NIN, Marilyn Manson, 13 Mg. and Unit: 187. It's safe to say that if you like any of those bands, there will be something on this album for you.
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Album: "Letdowncrush"
(1996) |
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Reviewed by: Darklight The songs found here are traditional 16 Volt with heavy thrashy guitars, drum beats, electronics, synths, and Eric Powell's slightly distorted screaming vocals. The album opens with "Swarm" which rocks hard with a slight NIN sound to it. The next song "The Dreams That Rot In Your Heart" mixes a slight hip-hop flavor that turns into rage punk. This is my favorite song on the album. "A Cloth Like Gauze" is a good solid song, but is a bit repetitive. "Something Left" shouldn't even be on this album. It's extremely slow and boring. "The Cut Collector" is a hard guitar heavy song that rocks straight forward. "Crush" is the most melodic song on the album. Eric sings with harmony on this song. It's a bit slow, but still very catchy. "Breed" sounds like a Faith No More song with Eric blurting out vocals in a deep mad fasion a lot like Faith No More's Mike Patton. It's aggressive and psycho, and I like it a lot. "Two Wires Thin" sounds a lot like the material found on 16 Volt's debut album "Wisdom". "Shameface" includes both melodic and aggressive moments. "Carla's Tarantulas" isn't a song. It's a comedy piece with a girl talking about getting high on banana peels, and a bunch of other silly stuff. Music plays in the background as she rambles on. This is good for a laugh one time. This album delivers eight solid songs that I like a lot, but they only reach about three minutes each, making the album fairly short.
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Album: "Skin"
(1994) |
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Reviewed by: Darklight Although this is a full length album, I only consider it an EP. Why? Because there are only five songs out of ten that I like. But the five songs alone make this album a must own. The songs that I'm talking about are "Skin", "Perfectly Fake", "Slow Wreck", "Stitched", and "Built To Last". These songs rock. They are energetic to the extreme. They all have a catchy style to them with well done electro sounds, guitar, and screaming vocals. But all of the other crap on the album I could do without. I'm serious. It's just a bunch of slow paced, boring, experimental sounding garbage. I almost like the song "Uplift", but it starts out so lame. The ending portion of the song rocks, though.
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Album: "Wisdom"
(1993) |
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Reviewed by: Darklight This album rocks. This is angry aggressive guitar heavy electro thrash punk music. The beats start slowly, and before you know what hit you they explode with guitar and angry distorted yelling vocals. The electronics are very noticeable, and are placed in the music very well. All of th songs have similar styles, but do stand alone with their own unique grooves. This album did put 16 Volt on the map as one of the more popular industrial bands of today, and I can see why. But not enough songs are given. There are seven songs with vocals and one instrumental. I could have handled a lot more material on this album. But it's still great. .
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