Artist: Xykogen
Title: Terminology
Type: Album
Label: Line Out Records
I volunteered to review this one. In amongst my metal interests, I have a historical affinity with Techno, Trance and all that stuff. I’m also partial to Goth music in its many forms. This cyber techno Goth fantasy was always going to be right up my street. Chaotic, industrial, outerworldly, shadowy, “Terminology” is the inspiration of Xykogen, a UK outfit featuring members of cyber and industrial punk and coldwave bands Arkam Asylum and History of Guns. Xykogen apparently means any process that influences minds. I got that completely. They haven’t played at Gothfest to my surprise but they have featured at the Whitby Gothic Weekend and the Futurepunk events.
The fact is that I have listened to Terminolgy several times and it has never burst into life. The first track ‘meta//axis’ is great. It’s pure industrial electro. It did occur to me that I was listening to this sort of thing 7 – 8 years ago and the sounds were reminiscent of the Platipus Records collection, but so what. After ‘meta//axis’, I found the album utterly boring. There’s a clear attempt to create some sort of atmosphere but track upon track just goes through the electro motions. It’s kind of creepy but creepiness alone doesn’t win prizes. Maybe it’s brilliant when it’s totally cranked up at 2am after a few pints and/or a substance of your choice, but shouldn’t great music shine through any environment? Industrial moments, fast beats and haunting female vocals are all drowned in a sea of repetitive synthetic bass drum beats. Even the rousing techno which starts ‘As If By Magick’ degenerates into a self-repeating dirge. I sensed a crunchy electro-industrial undertone on ‘Hashishin’ but this was all going nowhere. Apart from ‘meta//axis, the only track which I found interesting was ‘An Die Freude’, which was a multi-layered number with distant female vocals overlaying onto a sort of electro rap. At least there was an aura here, which was a welcome relief after all the dreariness which preceded it.
As soon as I put something else on afterwards (Nahemah, as it happened, no relation to this whatsoever), I realised what was missing on Terminology – it has no spirit, power or atmosphere even though it’s supposed to be about atmosphere. I’m not sure who this album is supposed to appeal to – fed up Goths, perhaps? I gave it a go, but Terminology was completely lost on me, I’m afraid.
http://www.xykogen.com
http://www.myspace.com/xykogen
http://www.lineoutrecords.com
Andrew Doherty
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