8KHZ MONO MONOCHROMATOR ALBUM PROGRESS PRODUCTIONS RELEASE: OCTOBER 20, 2004 REVIEW: OCTOBER 19, 2004

Vocoders, vocoders, vocoders. Long time readers might know of my vocoder fetish, and on this album I can really satisfy my wicked lusts in that department. Each and every track is chock full of it. One big flaw shines through though, namely that it's very hard to express emotion with vocoders, and when every song is sung in a basically identical way it all becomes too much very fast. Every chorus and verse sounds almost like carbon copies of each other. No points for variation there.
The first song "Heavy Water" kicks off the album in style however, with blasting beats, synth stabs working overtime and a chorus that I can actually still hum when the player has stopped. Danceable EBM at its best. Sadly the quality trails off quite a bit from here, with tired old sounds and song structures, which adds up to an unoriginal sound. Most tracks are not doing much for me; they don't stand out the way "Frequency" does. I do think the guys in this new Swedish band have talent, but they need to work more on variation, composition, sound design and not use the same vocal effect in each song.
Check it out if you want some classic EBM dancefloor fodder, which it works well for.

JOHAN CARLSSON