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CD Review: Concrete Lung - 'Waste Of Flesh'

Written by Dom Smith Saturday, 12 December 2009 02:48

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Reviews - CD

Brutal, deadly and delightful – Concrete Lung are one of the finest Industrial metal bands we have heard this year, and just in time too. The album’s opening track ‘Breathe In The Monochrome’ is a furious ode to the pure and hard-hitting electronic rock sounds from the good ol’ days. This material knocks the socks off of early many of this era’s international crossover pretenders and is set to bring coldwave kicking and screaming into 2010 with gargantuan riiffs, jackhammer drumming and unrelenting punk vocals mashed in with some Front Line Assembly influenced electro lashings. Meanwhile, ‘Recovery Position’ attacks instantly with spiteful words and pulsating beats before some nifty programming and keyboard elements smash through the great wall of noise thus creating the blueprint track for what the band refer to as ‘death Industrial’.

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‘Pyre Burns’ fires-off next and it’s a standout on the disk. Ed_Oxime’s angry voice soars over some piercing riffage and William Riever’s slight keyboards and chaotic percussive touches – this is one of the coolest songs that we have heard in a long while as it manages to post-punk guitar style with EBM-esque programming and a blistering heavy-as-hell metal attitude. ‘Destructive’ follows up nicely with a more atmospheric tone that builds towards a noisy, angry, violent old-school finish which in-turn leads perfectly into the title tune. This beast is unleashed upon our aching lobes like a mutant with its prominent acoustic drum beats mixing in again with the unpredictable guitar-lines and the strong repetition of a vitriolic key phrase, "Waste of flesh" alongside bleeps and samples galore. The near-eight minute ‘Sins Of Flesh’ remix that follows shows off a neat diversity by capturing dark painted soundscapes that are filled to the brim with club-baiting keyboard parts and soft riffs that clash against the moodier rhythms and heavier electro-Industrial sounds of the first three minutes. The final offering on the disk is the ‘Graveyard Recovery’ remix and this one is a much more raw and evocative affair mixing spacey electronic lashings and attractive squelchy synth sounds for a Flesh Eating Foundation influenced powerhouse to end the disk in typically explosive fashion.

Think of Concrete Lung as the musical equivalent of The Terminator - this stuff is honestly going to knock your teeth in and possibly replace your healthy organs with some cables and wire – yeah, you’re just going to have to deal with it. This country hasn’t had a better band in this genre for a long time.