EGC vs. General Failure |BitRiot, 2009|

01. Defrosted, 02. Abort, 03. Don't Quit Your Day Job, 04. I've Sold Your Organs On The Black Market To Finance The Purchase Of A Used Minivan, 05. Retry, 06. The Droids You're Looking For, 07. Bitch Stole My Time Machine, 08. Ignore, 09. Unleash The Kraken, 10. Monsters Of The Modern Age, 11. Ice Brigade, 12. Refrozen, 13. Fail

Everything Goes Cold it’s a band representative for the new generation of electronic-rock style of music. Their promotional and marketing strategies were worked out really well. EGC’s most recognizable graphical symbol is... an angry refrigerator (designed by Andrew Yang from stitchmind.com), appearing on most of their merch, posters, flyers, artworks etc. I have no doubts those cartoon/comic influences stand for a distance Eric Gottesman and his live band musicians keep to that project.

Being sort of ‘original’ means also releasing a debut album (2008) filled with.. remixes, which eventually led to grab attention of both listeners and bands around industrial rock and electronic music scenes. EGC toured with MLWTTK, SMP, Dismantled, 16volt, Bella Morte, Mankind is Obsolete, Babyland, Combichrist, Caustic etc. in 2008 as well as inked a record deal with young and promising branch of WaxTrax II – BitRiot a year later.

Finally, in „the year of remixes” A.D. 2009... a non remix album was released, which contained the songs known from Prepare To Be Refrigerated but in their original versions, mastered by Seibold (Hate Dept., Pigface) and accompanied by such known artists like Daniel Myer (Haujobb), Marco Visconti (Grendel, XP8), Dave Creadeau (Society Burning), J. Ned Kirby (Stromkern), Jason Bazinet (SMP), Kaine Delay (Left Spine Down), Matt Fanale (Caustic), Tyler Newman (Battery Cage) and of course EGC line-up: Eric Gottesman (Programming, Vocals, Keyboards), Kenny Pardo (Drums and percussion), James Webb (Guitar).

The album begins with a bit Moby-like chillout intro but then there are plenty of heavier stuff known from the previous album like aggressive „Abort” with a lot of sampling and screaming. „Don't Quit Your Day Job” is such a so-so track to me, possibly inspired by 8-bit scene music (Atari/Commodore patterns found) but I think the song has a genius title and at the same time it says about a brutal reality known especially to this scene musicians!

There’s a very recognizable song next, enriched with a long and intriguing title „I've Sold Your Organs On The Black Market To Finance The Purchase Of A Used Minivan” though its music is not that stunning to me and seemingly the refrains are much more interesting then the rest of the song.
„Retry” it’s an electronic yet guitar driven mixture with a big doze of aggression. Crazy sounding songs like „The Droids You're Looking For” and „Bitch Stole My Time Machine” bring a variety of moods. „Ice Brigade” undoubtedly matches music parties thanks to its pumping drum beats with very cool industrial rock guitars as well. “Fail” alike which could be called the most known song of EGC to be used widely for gigs and radio shows.

I could go on and on about the following songs for the next few pages to analyze them from different perspectives but there’s one thing sure - the album is filled with thirteen songs which create a variety of atmospheres. The songs on Vs. General Failure never stay too heavy because there are rather soft synths and samples put between the lines. If you erased all those dominative moods brought by gears and industry then there would almost pop songs come out along with their verses and refrains.

Finally, I have one complaint though. That album could have been done as a concept album easily because the songs were made in a certain way, but „Refrozen” should have been a final track to overlap the opening “Defrosted” considering their titles meaning matching as well as the atmospheres. In contrast, „Fail” closes the album and it doesn’t fit to that place to me because “Fail” should have been followed by „Refrozen”, „Ignore” or even „Retry”. Sadly „Refrozen” was built in a way that its final tunes bring the motifs from “Fail” so whatever you customize your track list, it won’t work with those 2 songs. All right.. I’m picking on them ;)

I have no idea how many years the band wants to be active still and how they planned their strategy. It may happen the band may exist for the next 2-3 years only, but their sort of 'comic', ironical attitude and attempt to create something new should be appreciated by those of you who’s looking for irony, less complicated songs, cool lyrics and ideas, what you’ll undoubtedly find in EGC music.

Vs. General Failure and Prepare To Be Refrigerated could have been easily released as a double CD too because both bring very similar tunes and as said before, there are original songs and remixes for them. It’s worth to have them both and let’s hope the musicians won’t run out of creative ideas for the next few releases.

(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz, 01/03/2010. Proofreading: Scott M. Owens. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below)