Artist: Bajskorv

Album: Scars and Stripes

Year: 2007

Label: Buried Electric

Genre: Old School Industrial, Experimental, Post-Industrial

Website: bajskorv.noisenobodies.com, myspace.com/bajskorv

Rating: 8.5/10

Tracklist:

1. Kapital

2. Pain

3. No Escape

4. Side Effects

5. City Of God

6. The Frail

7. Pais De Sangre

8. Blood

9. Disintegration

Some of you may remember Bajskorv’s last album “Isrch Tomb Ich” which is the only thing that I have given a perfect score to as of yet. So how does their latest release compare to that pinnacle of post-industrial? Hmm, let’s find out…

Well, amazingly this album does live up to the bar set by its predecessor. However, Scars and Stripes goes towards a more old school sound rather than the post-industrial sound presented on "Irsch Tomb Ich". Like most “old school” albums, I have to be in a certain mindset to listen to it and enjoy it, but when those criteria are met, than this album stands up with the best of them. With “Scars and Stripes”, Bajskorv presents a more structured album that exhumes the dark emotions and chaos of old school industrial while stepping away from the post-industrial sound (and still very far away from mainstream ebm), but it still retains the elements that made “Irsch” so powerful and mind-bending. On this album Christian Wright once again proves that he is a goddamn programming genius. It’s a huge relief to finally find an album that mixes strong and occasionally quite nearly club-friendly beats with insanely dynamic and complex layers of analog synthesis with old school junkyard noises and atmospheres that bring to light the darkness at the depths of the human soul. I can honestly say that I have never heard anything like this record before, and it blows away every other contemporary band that claims to be creating “old school” style industrial. The production on “Scars and Stripes” is a step up as well: the synths are much clearer and more powerful and the drums are similarly more audible and punchy. Every song is surprisingly different from the last, while carrying a distinct Bajskorv feel to it that unifies the album as a single entity.

It would be hard for me to pick apart and truly describe every element of this album to you, and you would most certainly do best to pick it up and listen for yourself. As I said, there is more of a focus on structure on this album. The beats are steadier and more pummeling. Of course by no means this does mean that they are strictly linear. These are by no means “club” beats, but they venture more towards that feel. There are a ton of subtle noises and synth modulations which hugely add atmosphere and dynamics to the tracks, but there is a bit more dominance of rhythm and melody synth without losing the avant-garde nature of the overall sound. One of my favorite things is the prevalence of amazing filter-sweeping analog synths. One will immediately think of Velvet Acid Christ, and it is true they do sound very similar, but the context in which they are used is quite different. This album revives the lost dark and utterly depressing atmospheres that made albums like “Too Dark Park” or “Calling Ov The Dead”.

The only downside to this album which caused it to lose points is the vocals. It feels like there is less of a focus on vocals here, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I do miss the multiple ogre-like vocal layers so quintessential to the last album, but to see that they’re changing it up is also nice. The flaw is simply that the vocals are way to quiet in the mix! There are an abundance of instances where the vocals become crushed into the sound and are virtually inaudible. Juan Monarez is an extremely diverse and talented vocalist, as shown repeatedly on ”Isrch…” and solidified here on tracks like ‘No Escape’, and unlike so many contemporary harsh industrial bands you really do not want to hear his vocals sunken deep in the mix. The vocals that are discernable are done well and fit perfectly with the atmospheres conjured up by Christians music. Like I mentioned earlier, the vocals will conjure up memories of Ogre on “Too Dark Park” and the like, but they are very much unique and deserve to be recognized as such, especially so in these modern times.

The bottom line is that anyone who claims to have any interest in actual industrial music or culture should check this out immediately. With each album, I find that Bajskorv is exceedingly under-rated and could quite possibly be considered the Skinny Puppy of this generation of industrial.

-[.d4n b4rr3tt.]

january 2008