SUICIDE COMMANDO AXIS OF EVIL ALBUM DEPENDENT, METROPOLIS RELEASE: OCTOBER 13, 2003 REVIEW: NOVEMBER 2, 2003

It's been two years since "Mindstrip" came out. Van Roy sits in his studio and works diligently on his follow-up record. Dependent check in every now and then, strictly to gauge their progeny's progress, of course. At some point, perhaps, it gets mentioned that the fans are growing restless so could he please hurry it up a bit. How about a single for "Face of Death", you know, the one that sounds nauseatingly like everything else you've ever done? Just to tide them over...
But it is a different story with this album, ladies and gentlemen. "Axis of Evil" does what the last two albums have been unable to do. It breaks new ground. This is something nearly unheard of in the world of "industrial" or whatever you wish to call it. Perhaps all the Aslan Factions out there who blatantly copy his style have sickened him, maybe he's finally tired of doing it by the book. Who can say. This fellow happens to have produced an album that is the best of his career. From the start right through to the bitter, bloodied end, "Axis of Evil" gives its all. Never flinching from what it's master commands it to do: advance, evolve, infiltrate.
If one needs proof that there still may yet be some kind of chance for electronic body music, then this powerfully compelling opus is that proof. Suicide Commando deliver hope to an otherwise hopeless landscape. Who knew they ever could elicit such an ability from within an otherwise cruelly brutal legacy.

PETER MARKS