DISMANTLED
DISMANTLED
ALBUM DEPENDENT, METROPOLIS RELEASE: JUNE 4 2002 (USA), JUNE 17 , 2002 (EUROPE) REVIEW: JUNE 10, 2002

Started by Russian born Gary Zon, Dismantled sort of continues where Front Line Assembly left off. The music is very reminiscent of earlier FLA (and one track is clearly inspired by Delerium), and Gary even states on his web page that FLA was the main reason for starting this band. However, the music is different enough to stand on its own merits.
When you consider the fact that Gary has only been making music since year 2000, it's pretty amazing that he manages to put so much feeling and mood into it, making the hair stand on my neck. These are tracks you still remember after the album comes to an end, and most of them are destined to be club hits as well. The entire soundscape sounds very big. I don't know any better way to describe it.
I have been able to follow this band for quite some time now, and it has been really interesting to follow the tracks from their rough demo stages. "Extirpation" for example, was originally a slightly disjointed instrumental, but has now grown into a fully blown dance smash.
Time for some criticism. The percussions could definitely use more variation, because it's noticeable that the same type of sounds are used a little bit too often. Also, why does every band put an ambient track at the end of the album? Please enlighten me.
This album does not mark a new era of industrial, Gary just takes bits and pieces here and there and puts his own style into it, making highly memorable music in the process. I'm very impressed by this debut, and hope that Dismantled will grow even more on the next album.

JOHAN CARLSSON