Voltage 2.3: Remixed & Revisited |Synthetic Entertainment, 2009|

01. Tape 8_ Worm Holes, 02. Reset (Melt Mix) _ Seb Komor, 03. Prozac Nation (Tim Skold Mix), 04. Tape 4_ Test Subject Phase 1, 05. She's Lost Control, 06. Ready Or Not (hairlip smacker mix) _ The Revolting Cocks, 07. Last Daze (Burning Electro Mix) _ Combichrist, 08. Hang Up (Cracknation Mix) _ DJ_ Acucrack, 09. Tape 23 Pharmaceutical Analysis, 10. Policy of Hypocrisy (Philthy Download Mix), 11. Last Daze (XP8 Mix), 12. Territorial Pissings, 13. Reset (Baal Mix), 14. Flip The Switch (Flick The Stitch) _ KMFDM, 15. Last Daze (Led Manville Mix), 16. Tape 18_ Status Report #3, 17. Welcome To The Future, 18. Reset (16 Volt Mix), 19. Last Daze (Funland Mix by the Birthday Massacre), 20. Fighting for Voltage (LSD mix) Chris Peterson & Jeremy Inkel

Left Spine Down is one of new but experienced Canadian bands who gained a truly success when touring with better and less known last year, also releasing full length albums. Additionally, the band musicians, Dennys McKnight and Mark Sommer run their own label Synthetic Entertainment and promote other fresh sound projects (f.e. The Rabid Whole). Canadian scene seems to be full of those, at least that's how I see it from the Central European perspective these days ;)

The thing about Left Spine Down is high quality of their music. It is also about the albums produced by Synthetic Entertainment mentioned above. Juicy sound, great drums, clear synths.

I browsed through the album at the beginning and there were already a few songs my ear paid attention to at once.
First of all, 16volt, a legendary industrial rock and coldwave fame, has been in a process of working on the new album since late 2008. The remix they did for 'Reset' came out great, not much to say the original 'Reset' song is one of my favorite from the 2008 LSD release too. Then another industrial rock icon, Revolting Cocks came out with edgy guitar riffs and a rhythm typical for them, still fresh and creative in a remix 'Ready Or Not (hairlip smacker mix)'.

I'm not the fan of Combichrist music but their remix caught my ear on this album. 'Last Daze (Burning Electro Mix)' offers all what should be necessary to make a dancefloor hot, moreover the original, cyber-punk feel of the song made it even more interesting. DJ? Acucrack known from his drum'n'bass attitude made a remix 'Hang Up (Cracknation Mix)' to be easily recognized by his fans of both solo achievements and working with Acumen Nation. KMFDM most often delivering remixes soaked with their typical sound (like NIN), didn't do it that way this time. If I was asked, I couldn't even guess 'Flip The Switch (Flick The Stitch)' it is their remix. It's a nice song tho, where the original punk verve has been kept in.
Finally 'Reset' by Baal, whom I keep coming across on different websites these days. Dynamic, harsh and fast. Very cool!

Other songs are kept in electro-dance style so not much my cup of tea, but there's also a remix of 'She's Lost Control', originally by Joy Division and 'Territorial Pissings' by LSD themselves.

My hatred for remix albums is world-wide-web known but I have a good excuse for this. There have been only a few interesting remix albums released since the 80s when the remix idea was spread all over the world. There have been so many remix albums these days created only to push less know artists to the music market whose remixes sometimes sucked bad. A really original band never comes out with the remixes on a debut album and this is not how it should be recalled after years, even if the band became famous.

Other than that Left Spine Down made a very good remix album and I enjoyed listening to it. 80% of the album content fits most of music clubs so you can easily take the album to the party and play it aloud. 20% of the album remained kind of guitar driven with even punk orientation to be found on the original 'Fighting for the Voltage' album.
Fortunately all previous music by LSD was guitar driven and so I hope the next release will be still filled up with cool riffs and energy.

(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below)