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Reviewed by 
Kim Alexander 
  
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Carpe Mortem


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Carpe Mortem Records
103 Cambridge
Pleasant Ridge, Michigan 48069
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This review is sponsored in part by
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Last Update
6 August 1998 
 

 
 
 
Carpe Mortem Presents
 
Darkness And The Machine
A Dark Electro Compilation From Detroit Michigan
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Track Listing
1. Skinhorse - More Life (Blade Mix)*
2. Randolph's Grin - Ask Me
3. DeLIEN - Survival
4. Black Ocean Drowning - The River
5. Skinhorse - Give to Me
6. Rogue Angel Seven - Bone Rabbit
7. Midnight Mourning - Year of the Hare
8. Backspace - Sister
9. Mortem Report - Combustible Leg
10. Ickytrip - Percephone
11. Dragon Tears Descending - January Wedding
12. DeLIEN - Inherit
13. Randolph's Grin - Bones (Ozone Mix)
 
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    Darkness And The Machine  is just one release from the Detroit Michigan area that does a great job in summing up the dark electro scene in and around Detroit.  It has a pretty good amount of diversity with creative bands/composers from the artists listed on the CD liner notes, many of whom were/are in other bands with different sounds altogether than what you will find on this release. Some of you may even recognize a few of the ones listed here, and if you haven't heard them yet, get hold of Carpe Mortem for a copy.

    Mortem Report's Combustible Leg is a high speed techno-edge electro dance song for the aerobic dark wavers while Midnight Mourning is more dark, ominous eerie goth trance-indental featuring floating female vocals (Phaedra Robinson) in Year Of The Hare.

    Randolph's Grin has two tracks of which the first one is quite a sensuously industrial electro-mix of heavy drums, keys and the continuous question to a rather awesome dance beat: "Tell me if it feels good..."....well you can imagine the woman who sings that one! Pretty seductive!  Their Bones track is more aggro-gothik in nature, melodic, powerful and romantic.

    Skinhorse's Blade Mix of More Life is at the core of dark electro-dance and laden with samples from, yep, BladeRunner! One of the most sampled movies of all time from what I hear. But they are such GOOD SAMPLES!  Give To Me is really evil electro -- deep bassynth, tasty tasty drumming and sensuous male vocals round out this work.

    Other tracks on this release add dimension to the diversity such as Black Ocean Drowning with  The River 's "classical-new-waveyish" power, energy and an actual TUNE -- and the band DeLIEN with two tracks of whirring dancey and harmonic electro accents in Survival, and Inherit which is more techno-edge swift, more dancey swirling sonics, treated vocals, sequenced noise with excellent drum programming.

    Rogue Angel Seven just pounds out the industrial waves in Bone Rabbit -- pretty hard core unrelentless surges!  Backspace pools resources of percussion, vocals, keys and sampling in Sister, which promises new sounds in the aggro-industrial battlefield.  Backspace was going to open up for Haujobb on their (canceled) 98 tour. Ickytrip's Perciphone delves even further into the Detroit Darkwave electro scene with a more classical composition meshed with ancient drone and harmony, the best of both worlds there -- and Dragon Tear Descending's January Wedding is a moody yet not sad gothic work of danceable rhythms, male and female vocals (excellent!) and haunting synthscapes which round out this neo-classic style.