Band: It-Clings vs. Pneumatic Detach

Album: The All Too Logical Descent Into Madness

Album Year: 2007

Label:  Bugs Crawling Out Of People

Genre(s): Spoken Word, Rhythmic Noise

Website: www.bugscrawlingoutofpeople.com

Tracklist:
 

The All Too Logical Descent Into Madness is one of the more remarkable albums I have heard this year. Amongst a sea of insipid terror ebm and mindless power noise releases, this album cannot help but stand out. To summarize, The All Too Logical Descent Into Madness is the coalescence of the spoken word of It-Clings put to the rhythmic noise beats of Pneumatic Detach. I’m sure that at this point you have already surmised that this will probably be a love/hate album for most…

I’m going to come straight out and say that I love this album. It’s an interesting and possibly necessary step for industrial/post-industrial. I hate that industrial has continuously become dumbed and watered down over the years, and I’ve been waiting for an album like this for a long time. The beats are pretty standard hard yet dynamic PD. Most of the songs are pretty upbeat and noisey, which I found to be strange because I imagined the album would be a bunch of mellow stuff like Autoclav 1.1’s “Miags”. It’s not and it’s kind of nice (it helps to purvey the anger permeating these 14 pieces). The beats and the words don’t seem to clash at all. They both stand alone, yet they also mesh together in certain unseen ways to produce something greater than the sum of the individual parts.  The beats are to some extent simple and straight-forward without a ton of complexity or variation, but it is acceptable because the words and the lyrical content are the main focus of this album (something completely alien to contemporary industrial). This isn’t to say that the beats aren’t good or original or whatever. The beats are cool and they fit with the vocals and on a few occasions there are even some catchy melodies.

The main part of the album as I briefly mentioned is the verbal ranting of It-Clings. Spoken word is not for everyone, and I can definitely see a good bit of this album going over people’s heads or, more likely, people just not willing to take the time to actually listen and/or read the text. But oh well, fuck them. The rants in my opinion are good. They are very blunt and visceral depictions of life and the human condition, seething with sickness and disgust. They are full of emotion and conviction which is a large reason why this album works so well. It-Clings definitely rants from the heart, albeit a poisoned and blackened heart. The words have the power to tear open your skull and bash your brain in a hammer-like fashion, although they probably aren’t going to jump out of the tracks on their own. The listener has to put in some effort of their own in order to get the full effect of this album. The listener has to pay attention and focus on what is actually being said in order to understand and subsequently “get” what is going on here. The best part of the album and possibly what “makes” it is the fact that it chronicles It-Clings’s descent into madness. As the tracks progress so do the style and intensity of the vocals. The vocals twist and turn, become mangled and daemonic as the music progresses and the track count increases. It’s a sick and perhaps painful journey, but it is well worth it.

The only thing negative that I can really say about the album is that I can’t really listen to it from beginning to end. All the songs in themselves are good and worth listening to, but after 6 or 8 tracks I usually find myself saying “ok I’m ready for something else”.

The bottom line is that if you’re looking for something new from industrial music that requires you to turn your brain on and pay attention, then I highly recommend The All Too Logical Descent Into Madness. However, if you want something catchy and mindless that you can effectively zone out to, than I’d say avoid this.