PAIN STATION
COLD
ALBUM COP, SSC/PLAYGROUND RELEASE: OCTOBER 18, 1999 REVIEW: NOVEMBER 4, 1999


Electronic body music is about a certain sound and a certain attitude. At least I haven't head many examples of EBM artists crying their hearts out for a girl, or if they do, tears turn out to be acid rain in the second verse. The sky is the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel and all that. It can be sociocritical or even political protest music, cynical musings or simply gothic romanticism in a post-apocalyptical future setting.
As of now, EBM has one of it's stronghold in the United States in the form of the COP label, housing amongst others Scott Sturgis project Pain Station.
Sturgis works in an experimental tradition, pairing harsh, noisy electronics and traditional EBM to express what seems to be inner turmoil rather than anything in the outside world. The distorted, desperate sounding vocals work best to their advantage on "Dead Inside", where the chorus reveals sudden beauty among unbearable crackles of noise. At other times, without proper backing, the distorted singing sounds just like the EBM cliché that it is, an expression of "cool dangerousness" typical of the genre, about as terrifying as a cocker spaniel.

MATTIAS HUSS