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| #FOR FANS OF: Death/Industrial, Rammstein |
"Industrial melodic death metal? You mean Obsidian style? Or more like early Fear Factory? Oh wait - industrial melodic death metal from France?! Okay Voron, you have my attention. After all, your artwork is pretty striking and your moniker is taken from a Russian special operations group highly trained in infiltration. Let's see what you can do now that you have peaked my curiosity... ...oh right. Fuck all. Metal is a very flexible genre; it can curve and twist to accommodate the inclusion of certain aspects of other musical styles. Unfortunately, the electronic effects and synthesizers in 'Propaganda' come across as being completely detached from the rest of the band. It could be down to the inadequacy of the mix, or because the keyboards never carry any substantial melody, but they simply do not fuse well. This is a great shame, especially when you consider that this fusion is what crafted the success of bands like Static-X (though I have to admit, the sitar solo in "Justice" is intriguing to the say the least!). This failure to integrate the authentic with the digital creates a very frustrating atmosphere for an industrial metal band. It never reaches the cold, soulless depths of Crossbreed, but also fails to be as quirky as Kaos Krew. This results in a bland timbre which is unsuccessful in its attempt to grab the attention of the listener. In one ear - out the other. This is certainly not aided by the dreadful production quality, which seems to mask the drums in favour of emphasizing the hideous vocals. Atmosphere and production quality notwithstanding, the absolute worst thing about 'Propaganda' is the ghastly voice of ... hmm, what's his name? Oh! He calls himself 'Voron'! Let's say nothing about egos here then! Voron's voice is akin to that of the Cookie Monster trying to burp the alphabet. Coincidentally, there are many guest vocalists on this album, who contribute absolutely nothing to proceedings. Is Voron knowingly ashamed of his dreadful belching? Perhaps he has future plans to abandon vocal duties and concentrate on his guitar-work. That's right! There are guitars on this record! Annoyingly, the riffs are the single best aspect of 'Propaganda' - almost Rammstein-esque in their gravitas. The songs that are lacking in riffage ("Willingly" and "I Dreamt"especially) are the total drek that should be skipped without question. The opening of "Fall of the Risen" is a total groove-fest, the 2:48 mark in "Kill This Day" reeks of old-school death metal goodness, and the chunky, chromatic riff in "Is Suicide My Fate?" is the highlight of the whole affair. I'm really struggling to think of this as 'industrial melodic death metal'. The atmosphere is drab, the tempo never clambers above snail-trail, the mix has the consistency of lumpy porridge, and the song structures are unmemorable to say the least. ...but damn, those riffs!" (Larry Best)
(Self - 2015)
Score: 40