The Undisputed God(s)

Skinny Puppy can do no wrong. There are very few artists whom I regard as functionally infallible--that is, I've loved everything that I have ever heard from them, and based on that can safely assume that I will love anything new from them as well. Not even my idol Gary Numan has that kind of cred in my book: he's put out a few less-than-stellar albums, to say the least. Yet Skinny Puppy has never let a brotha down.

I discovered them in Fall of 1992 when a friend loaned me his copy of Too Dark Park, and I was enthralled from that moment on. I'd discovered industrial music a few years before via MTV's late, and much-lamented 120 Minutes show, where I saw my first Ministry and Nitzer Ebb videos, and was immediately drawn to the genre because of its unrelenting viciousness and its amazing diversity--on the one hand, you had the metallic guitar-grunge of Ministry, while on t'other, the aggravated electro-disco of Nitzer Ebb. Yet both were considered industrial. But I hadn't heard real industrial until I heard Skinny Puppy. Though I already owned some seminal CDs by the afforementioned Ministry and Nitzer Ebb, as well as the Revolting Cocks, Front 242, and Front Line Assembly, Too Dark Park was the noise-drug that hooked me on industrial; it pounded retractors into the sutures of my skull, cranked open my brainpan, and sank its wires and cold, electroplated tools into the filthiest, darkest adytums of my brain. That album hit all the right opioid receptors and slaved me to the band for life. After that, I began grabbing up anything by the band I could find, which, considering I lived then and still live today in the leafy bowels of southwestern Pennsylvania, meant mostly going through mail-order. (Gods, how I miss Digital Underground in Philly.)

When Nivek Ogre left the band in 1994, and then Dwayne Goettel passed away shortly thereafter, I was pretty busted up: the band I'd quickly come to revere as the undisputed gods of industrial music had disintegrated only a few years after I discovered them. Just my fuckin' luck. Fortunately, they had a pretty extensive back-catalogue, and I spent the remainder of the 1990s seeking out every bootleg, single, and alternative-pressing I could...and wishing that The Process hadn't been their final album--especially when the commercial rarities collection, Brap: Back and Forth, Series 3 & 4 came out, quickly followed by the In the Vault series of extreme rarities collections. It just seemed as though the band unravelled just when they were beginning to explore the impressive sound-butchering possibilities offered by all the new digital audio software and hardware flooding the market with the dawn of the Information Age. Ogre's two solo albums with Mark Walk, Welt and SunnyPsyOp, and cEvin Key's various solo albums and work released under the Download moniker showed just how amazing the surviving band members could still be on their own...but would they ever overcome their differences and work together again?

In 2001, that questioned was answered: Nivek Ogre contributed vocals to the song "Frozen Sky" on cEvin Key's paramount solo album, The Ghost of Each Room. That song clearly indicated that the two still had it in them to work together very effectively, and rumors immediately started up about a future Skinny Puppy reunion. In 2003, cEvin and Ogre (with Mark Walk on production) released the dance-floor-murdering jam "Optimissed" on the soundtrack for the movie Underworld--and by then it was obvious that another Skinny Puppy album would be coming along eventually. But with Dwayne Goettel gone...what would it sound like?

The Greater Wrong of the Right was released in 2004 and it proved that the band had the ability to pick up exactly where they'd left off nearly a decade before. It was a much more "user-friendly" album than the abstract noise-fest that was Last Rights, and substantially more cohesive than The Process; every single track was surprisingly danceable--which made a lot of fans ponder whether the band was attempting to "sell out" and make a little money by attempting to re-attract industrial fans who'd drifted into listening to the god-awful trance that now passed itself off as industrial. But despite the more accessible rhythms and the greater emphasis on melodic structures, the album was 100% Skinny Puppy: twisted electronics, chopped-up vocals, and everything else you'd come to expect from Skinny Puppy. Just more polished.

But as good as the album was, it was still obvious that it was a collection of songs, not an album. Heretofore, Skinny Puppy had always had a very thematic approach to their albums: consider their brutal, and almost unlistenable (at times) masterpiece VIVIsectVI, whose tracks were all constructed around biomedical and animal-rights issues. TGWOTR still had a sort of unifying theme--the undeniable hypocrisy of the politically Right, as announced in the title--but the music was a little inconsistent, swinging from pseudo-pop-electro to twitchy IDM-influenced mutations. Amazing, yes, but inconsistent. But, really, what could you expect from an album produced by a band who hadn't worked together for over a decade? It was still a hell of a comeback, though!

And now, not even two years later, we've got another Skinny Puppy album coming down the pipe: Mythmaker. I managed to land a pre-release copy and have been listening to it on repeat for hours now...and I've quickly come to the conclusion that this may be the best Skinny Puppy album since the one that started it all for me, Too Dark Park.

To begin with, once again Skinny Puppy have returned with a coherent theme. According to the press release available on the SP MySpace page, which has recently become their official information organ, the album is built around the following ideas:

There’s not much difference between a playground bully, a corporate CEO and the self-absorbed figureheads of many of the world’s current administrations. They’ll all tell you that by surrendering your lunch money or tax dollars, they’re working toward “your best interests.” And we all realize these people are merely imposing a will of their own choosing to enhance their own mythology. Of course, fake benevolence isn’t the sole domain of public figures: Life has taught us the most insidious masters of manipulation come in more covert and intimate forms. Consider your friends, lovers and spouses.

A nice combination of the universal and the personal, there. Thematically, this is quite close to The Greater Wrong of the Right, and Mythmaker could easily be surmised to be a continuation of this very politically-conscious band's efforts to cast a harsh and sputtering light on the evils of "the world's current administrations". But TGWOTR was prettymuch the same...so what makes this album stand out? Simple: Mythmaker is a much more sonically-coherent work whose songs nevertheless explore a much broader range of sounds, instruments, and orchestrations than TGWOTR. In fact, Skinny Puppy haven't been this musically diverse since Too Dark Park.

So let me take you through this album song by song, and hopefully inspire you to hop immediately over to Amazon.com and place a pre-release order. I wasn't even halfway through the first track before I handed over my cash!

The album opens with the wickedly-satyrical, and almost sing-songy "magnifishit"--a track that is, to be honest, more akin to an ohGr track than a true Skinny Puppy track...at least at first. The grinding, ring-modulated vocals snake through the martial drums and the throbbing bass, the itchy synths, the violin stabs, the clanging bells, and the bombastic tympani. In fact, the first part of the song is an odd combination of danceable beats and orchestral touches that, along with the surprisingly-catchy lyrics, create a very memorable song. The beat begins to relax a bit about halfway through, and sweeping pads and grimy guitars rise from the chaos. The vocals clearly show the attentions of Mark Walk, who is a genius at applying dynamic distortion and various odd effects to Ogre's voice to give it a very inhuman feel while still leaving his unique voice clear and sharp in the mix. But what really sets this song apart and makes it a great starting point for the album is cEvin's almost-militaristic music: the song sounds like a mutated version of a West Point graduation march--which really helps set the tone for this snarling antiestablishment album.

And then everything changes pace with track two, "daL". The twittery synths and the hiphoppish beat, along with the shattered female vocal samples, make the track initially sound like Skinny Puppy butchering a Pussycat Dolls track. But then the lyrics begin, the fuzzy guitars swell up around an agitated beat layered with seizing rhythms, clipping stabs, and the martial drums return for the choruses. The song's rhythm sections and voices are liberally chipped and chopped with a very noted click-n'-glitch influence, but "daL" is still relatively easy for n00bs unfamiliar with SP's incredibly dense "audio sculpture" method of layering sounds and mixing to be able to bob they heads and enjoy the solid groove underneath all the grimy bass, the staticky guitars, and the broken rhythms. Longtime Skinny Puppy fans will recognize in this song the same convoluted structures and cracked, rusted sounds known frmo VIVIsectVI and Last Rights, yet the chaos is a bit more tamed and kept under control, as good songwriting has lately taken over from harsh experimentalism in Skinny Puppy's music and cEvin Key's solo work. Some industrial purists may balk at this, but don't forget, people: SP has never shied away from writing a good funkin' jam that can make you think and move your G/I asses. And boy, do you have one here in "daL"!

Next up: "haZe". One thing I've noticed about this album as a whole is that the titles of the individual tracks are, for the most part, very appropriate in defining the actual sounds of the songs themselves. "haZe" is a perfect example of this: the track opens with soft, foggy synths rising up like hazy humidity from a bed of outdoor bird sounds--with Ogre's highly-vocoded vocals swirling through them in fuzzy loops. There are heavy moments of muted guitars and hammering beats, but the song is dominated by vocoded voices, sparkling synths, and blurry melodies that bloom and glow like dim lights on a smoggy morning. Once again, those orchestral touches--bells, clashing cymbals, and rumbling bass drums--are present, giving the choruses a punch that injects moments of great energy into an otherwise misty, mournful downtempo song that is curiously beautiful. In many ways, this track feels like a sequel to The Process' "Curse" in subject matter (dying, insane relationships), and in lovely instrumentation dissected by furious rhythms and furious lyrics. There's real, audible pain in the lyrics, and cEvin's instrumentation backs up that passive-aggressive agony beautifully--much, much better than any pissy, hand-stapled-to-forehead, highschool-wangsty Nine Inch Nails track ever could.

"pedafly" is certainly the hardest industrial song Skinny Puppy has released since "Hardset Head" on The Process, and it proves that the band that produced concussive numbers like "Hardset Head", "Tin Omen", and "Anger" can still get worked up and rage. This track presents a nice mix of growly guitars blended with spastic synths and a truly hammering beat, creating a thunderous atmosphere of pure, unadulterated anger. The light, detuned piano intro has a very Nightmare on Elm Street feeling, but quickly falls into the background as jittery synths and clanging percussion rise over it--and then everything goes to hell when the jackhammer beat comes crashing in. This is Skinny Puppy at the band's most metallic...and considering how much of the song's punch comes from wickedly-distorted synths instead of grinding guitars, it's almost an anti-metal jam--but don't tell that to the headbangers who are sure to find this track appropriately brutal and aggressive. This. Is. An. Evil. Song. The pounding drums and the scorched synths practically drip tetradotoxin. And come the end when, following the most tortured, manic yelps I've ever heard Ogre put out, the concluding sample (from Zombie II: Isle of the Flesh-Eaters, I think) kicks in--"Any medical student could've seen that the eyes were torn from the body by nothing other than human fingers"--snipped and sutured and delayed into a tense coda, you can't help but feel like you've just gone ten rounds with that killer droid from Hardwired. Good music for highlight reels of World War III action.

And then..."jaHer" brings it all back down a much softer, more accessible level once again. This song is all acoustic guitar, piano, throbbing bass, immersive pads, pounding kicks and rattling percussion, and terrible, terrible depression. If "pedafly" was an excursion into fury, then "jaHer" is the regret-poisoned exhaustion that kicks in after the rage has burnt itself out and you're left shuffling blindly in the cooling ashes. This could be the theme song to Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's a deceptively minimalistic piece, and after the dense wall of sound that was "pedafly", "jaHer" comes as a panting break that could almost be considered a ballad. It's very tuneful, catchy, and actually pretty. Huh. Who'd've ever thought a Skinny Puppy song could be beautiful? "Curse" had its moments, as did "Choralone"--but this is Skinny Puppy taking a break from the horror and exploring heavy-hearted territory a lot more familiar to acts like NIN and The Cure. But, of course, Skinny Puppy does a better job of mapping the terra damnata of despair and resignation better than all those others combined. The piano solo at the end has got to be the most hollow-eyed epilogue I've ever heard on a song....The audial equivalent of a half-dead man with a thousand-yard stare.

"politikiL" is just as violent as its name, and, if anything, can be considered more harsh than "pedafly". This is the closest Skinny Puppy has come to recapturing the brittle crunch and harsh social commentary of VIVIsectVI--but this is a much more accomplished song. Less experimental, yes, but much more restrained. That said, it's still a spastic seizure of a jam filled with clicky, glitchy rhythms, arpeggiated basses, mutilated guitars (or guitar samples: it's impossible to tell), and vocal slabs melted into bizarre glossolalic passages by Mark Walk's amazing vocal treatments. You want to drive to DC and set off a bomb at the bass of the Washington Monument? Then this is the piece you'd better be listening to on repeat as you're driving that U-Haul loaded with fertilizer down the Beltway. "Are you on for the suck?" asks the chorus...and a hundred million cheering Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) stand tall and declaim that yes, we as a nation are on for The Suck! And here's our President George W. Bush to tell us just what to suck....

"politikiL" prepares the ground for "lestiduZ", an epileptic grand mal of a song that seems pieced together from random vocals, scratched and skipping CDs, hyper-sped-up beats, malfunctioning drum machines, and circuitbent synths just found lying around in Subconscious Studios. However, this song is not all screeches and jagged beats: there are plenty of Skinny Puppy's trademark reverbed choirs, skittery basslines, and electronic noodling here. But this is a very experimental, polyrhythmic track whose roots are firmly laid in VIVIsectVI and Last Rights. I'm pretty sure that Otto von Schirach, the IDM maniac from Miami, Florida, and now frequent contributor to Skinny Puppy, is responsible for a great deal of the sheer chaos and horrific noise of this track. Vicious! Ever wonder what the inside a broken Terminator's mind sound like? Pry open that adamantium skull and "lestiduZ" comes sputtering out--but be careful: wash skin immediately after exposure to avoid caustic burns!

After the witchy itchy glitch-fest of "lestiduZ", "pasturN" is a bit of a relief: a melodic jam full of deep, arpeggiated synth pads and a beat that, while skittery as all on this album, is not quite as insane as those on "daL" and "lestiduZ." There are some subdued, but grungy, guitars and plenty of heavy bass sounds groaning beneath a rather busy mix filled with jangly synths and laser stabs. In many ways, this song sounds like the little brother of "Past Present" from TGWOTR...and since that was my least favorite track on that album, so "pasturN" is on this one--which is not to say that it is a bad piece of work in any sense: it's just overshadowed and almost overlooked between the psychotic melange that is "lestiduZ" and "ambiantZ."

It is impossible to ignore "ambiantZ"--a track that actually has very little ambience to it, but a whole lot of intricacy. Kick drums that stab through the mix like howitzer rounds, a bassline straight out of Too Dark Park, eerie synth bells, and Ogre's voice ring-modded to the point that is sounds like a whisper magnified to a shout in a rusted boiler. As catchy as this song is, it's also one of the more random, dense songs on the album...with everything swirling together into a driving rain of sound that will definitely help keep your energy up for the final track--

and, dear gods, you're gonna need it. "ugLi" is the most catchy song Skinny Puppy has ever produced. With its sing-along chorus, "Jesus wants to be ugly" and its sizzling hihats and bassline, this song sounds like "S.K.U.M.M. (Human DIsease)" melded with "Glass Houses" and then dipped in an alloy coating of Pure Rock(tm). The beat is vicious, the vocals horrifically distorted...and then the hyperspeed arpeggiated vocals come slicing in. At that point, it's all over: the energy of the track is so great it will likely burn a hole through your speakers. "pedafly" may be the hardest song Skinny Puppy has put out in years, but this jam is the most driving: never before have I heard a 909 snare sound so violent as it comes spitting through the mix like sparks. And then...and then...as though it were exhausted by its own force, the song falls into a three-minute-long "Download"-esque noise breakdown that gradually rots and falls to pieces, leaving a trail of smoking clinker and the awful stink of burnt metal behind it.

All in all, this is Skinny Puppy's comeback album. TGWOTR was a great collection of songs, and a wonderful getting-to-know-one-another-again experience--but Mythmaker is an album through and through, from its larger-than-ever opening track to its dance-floor-decimating closer. The best thing about Mythmaker, though, is that it's so beautifully mixed. Much like many of SP's earlier albums, this one's a serious headphone phuck: the panning and mastering are just incredible, and in some cases dizzying. Mark Walk has proven that he is an excellent successor to Dave "Rave" Ogilvie as Skinny Puppy's producer of choice--and much as "Rave" was practically a fourth member of Skinny Puppy during the VIVIsectVI recordings, so Mark Walk's input and production is absolutely necessary for this album to be as awesome as it is. This is the first album from Skinny Puppy on which guitars are mixed 100% properly: they're audible, sure, and very necessary to the songs that they populate, but they are treated as nothing more than Another Instrument--necessary, but not overwhelming. That has always been my big problem with The Process: too often the guitars on that album are simply too prominent, and they make some songs (like "Curse", for example) sound more like metal anthems than Skinny Puppy tracks--good stuff, but just...mixed oddly to my ears.

But all that's over and done with now. Skinny Puppy has produced what may be the first 100% perfect industrial album of the 21st Century, and have proven that they still have all the power and energy that they did when they produced Too Dark Park. Hopefully, Mythmaker will serve the same purpose and draw a whole new generation of SP fans into the fold!