The Infant Cycle - Remote download free

THE CEILING sent me a vinyl album which featured one complete side by TIC which I gave a rave review of elsewhere on this site. So receiving not only a full album but one on what is, lets face facts, an easier, more user-friendly medium made the pulse pick up the pace. And from the first notes of the opening track I could tell this was going to be a classic. Easy smooth yet rough-edged beat very much like post-BULLEN SCORN surrounded by a subtly-handled chaos of sounds - like the ambient soundtrack to "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" set to a lethargic structure. Long well-handled ambient segues between the 'tracks' act as smooth, fascinating bridges on audio imagery - somewhere between dark ambient and factory Industrial. The second beat part of the opening track sounds more like DOME - machine-like drums and oh-so-simple picked bassline combining into something greater than the sum of it's parts. Edgy dance music for wastelands! The second track opens to a cold crushing metal danger - structure without recourse to rhythm - machine talk and radio signals from invading alien forces. You can almost hear bones being crushed and fear your own might be next. Rhythms which sound like PAN SONIC performing "Poeme Electronique" form - playing and experimenting with rhythm structures (I suspect using single repeat delays). Very stark, yet somehow injected with a warmth that simply doesn't alienate. The third track is goes even further into experimentation, delving into the bizarre realms of modern classical music - sort of STOCKHAUSEN meets THROBBING GRISTLE. Stripped down echoing pipework which reverberates like signals down a gigantic steel spider's web. While ghost short wave voices fade in and out. This piece stretches out further and further into darkness, decaying into LULL-like ambient ripples before finally fading to silence. I don't think THE INFANT CYCLE would be offended if I were to describe them as Old School Industrial with 21st Century refinement. A classic album which demands to be played again and again. A curious juxtaposition of stark structure and (overall) warm tones fails to alienate, instead luring you further and further into their abstract world. Originally reviewed for Metamorphic Journeyman.