The only thing Wrong, is that it took this long....
Written: Jun 21 '04
Product Rating:
Pros: Driving percussion, smooth transition, solid production
Cons: Some lack of variation on rhythm tracks in first half of album
The Bottom Line: Moody and atmospheric, and a bit more accessible than their early work, Skinny Puppy offers up a lot on their first album of new material in years.
minorthreat78's Full Review: The Greater Wrong of the Right [Digipak] by Skinny...
Flash back a few years (say, 15 or so, give or take) to a time when industrial music was dark and mysterious and mostly ignored by civil-minded, "normal" people. Not the Marilyn Manson followers with their over-blown sense of "image" and "style" that pretty much made the goth scene even more of an embarrassment than it already was. Not the Trent Reznor-worshipping, self-flagellating misfits that were convinced everyone needed to hear their pain.
No! Here I speak of the admittedly somewhat nearly as pathetic fans of the oddball style of music we presently refer to as "industrial", though some of it used to be called EBM (eventually, all but the most hardcore adherents to the EBM term started to realize that and sub-genre called "Electronic Body Music" is doomed from the start). You know this type from school, if you are somewhere between 21 and 35 years of age: the person that kinda looked like a cross between a metal-head, a stoner and a really angry goth? He probably listened to Skinny Puppy, along with Ministry and Front Line Assembly, and a bunch of other bands you've never heard of, and most likely wouldn't enjoy, even if forced to listen to their abrasive, metallic sound.
The point being, Skinny Puppy is not a band most people know from memory (wearing my Skinny Puppy t-shirt mostly evokes a "huh?" from the teeming masses). A band with creative vision and a bizarrely militant animal rights agenda, they are probably better known for their surreal simulated vivisections of animals on-stage and obligatory "we're soooo goth" standard-issue industrial band make-up kits than for any song they put out.
But, even if you didn't know them, they are regarded among the industrial/goth/generally-freakish-hangers-on communities as one of the pivotal bands in developing the quirky sub-set of dance music known as "industrial dance" or the aforementioned EBM. Built around brash electronic percussion, horror movie samples, and heavily distorted vox and guitars, it ain't exactly everybody's idea of disco party time, but the music they produced still gets the party going at various goth clubs, fetish and bondage emporiums, and box socials after Black Masses (or so I've heard...its not like I do that sort of thing, after all).
While the band's influence is much felt and acknowledged, the members of the Puppy had much conflict and animosity, which, when combined with rampant drug abuse and many, many other creative issues, resulting in the band's implosion several years ago, leaving a much-derided album entitled The Process (which was nowhere near as bad as many make it out to be...it was just a little too different for many to buy into).
Anyway, the band finally managed to make some form of amends, resulting in 2004's album The Greater Wrong of the Right. While sans long-time Puppy producer David Ogilvie, it still offers up the creative talents of vocalist Nivek Ogre and multi-instrumentalist cEvin Key (who shares production duties with Ogre solo project Oghr collaborater Mark Walk), back again with more heavy percussion dance tracks with a sinister edge.
It doesn't take very long into the album to notice a distinct difference between this album and their earlier work. Oh, to be sure, there is the same nihilistic lyrics, dark vocals by Ogre...but wait, without 50 billion layers of distortion?! Yes, for much of the album, Mr. Ogre is actually capable of having his lyrics understood by people unarmed with high-end production software. But fear not; he still sounds vaguely nightmarish (in a cool way, mind you), and I don't think the album hurts for the less dense production.
This reductivist approach to the album's production is fairly clear without. In many ways, I was reminded of the more production-minimal work of KMFDM (think Naive/Angst era); the steady electronic drum pulses, looping sound effects, simple keyboard melodies, and half-sung, half-rapped vocals. Okay, so Ogre's voice sounds nothing like any of the KMFDM vocalists; it is the closest thing to an analogy I can come up with on short notice.
This similarity is most obvious on the first two tracks, "I'mmortal" and "Pro-test", which are almost spare in their production. To be fair, though, not all is simple and unfettered; the more dense sampling work on "Neuwerld" and "Ghostman", and its accompanying vocal manipulations and distortions, keep us all from forgetting the dark soundscapes Skinny Puppy can produce from a myriad of simple sounds.
"Use Less", though, is probably the highlight of the album. With drum assists ("real, acoustic drums?" Yes, real, honest-to-the-gods, drums) by Tool's Danny Carey, and backing vocals by Wayne Static of Static-X, the song is intense and complicated, driving and gives Ogre a chance to stretch himself vocally.
Too often, bands that get back together after a long absence tend to put out a by-the-numbers, generic copy of their earlier work. And, while the change in style from their early albums is obvious, the results Skinny Puppy put on disc are more than good enough to make up for adjusting to the stylistic variations.
Granted, some old-school fans may pick the album up and dislike the change in style; personally, though, I found this album to be every bit the equal of the band's best work, and one of the best industrial albums in the last several years. If you are into the genre, or are fans of the band that don't mind a little change in style, this is definitely worth a look.
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