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)
Fighting For Voltage | Synthetic, 2008| 
1. Intro, 2. U Can't Stop The Bomb, 3. Ready Or Not, 4. Reset, 5. Caught In Time, 6. Last Daze, 7. Tape 2: Further Studies And Strategies, 8. Prozac Nation, 9. Flip The Switch, 10. Policy Of Hypocrisy, 11. Time Holes, 12. Hang Up, 13. Future Implosion, 14. Ignorance Is Piss, 15. Fighting For Voltage, 16. Outro
The Canadian industrial music scene has been associated to such bands like Front Line Assembly, Numb or Skinny Puppy so far. New bands has began to attack the scene these days however a few of their members have cooperated with FLA. So thus there have been interesting CD releases from Stiff Valentine, Left Spine Down or Promonium Jesters.
There are Jeremy Inkel (keyboards, programming, sound design) and Jared Slingerland (guitars) in the LSD lineup (former FLA members) but also Denyss McKnight former bass player of The Black Halos, Kaine D3l4y (vocals), Matt Girvan (guitar) and Tim Hagberg on drums.
There's also some new and fresh content necessary to make a progress of the certain music style coming along with the new bands. LSD mingles influences of industrial rock, punk, hip hop or even drum'n'bass. Most of their songs are about high dynamics, punk revolution, concept cohesion and high quality music production. Listening to them I'm getting an impression if there was a fusion of Sex Pistols and The Clash ran through a filter called the XXI century computer based technology it would create such a Left Spine Down.
The album concept is based on a mixture between strict raw experimental-industrial compositions and songs with a standard rock construction including verses and choruses. Because of that you can set your own playlist to either rock tracks or industrial arrangements. However the album should be considered as the whole work.
There's my favourite song Reset on the CD known from Smartbomb EP released much earlier. Flip The Switch and Hang Up remind me the late Pitchshifter's recordings but the title songs Fighting For Voltage sounds like calling for a truly punk, or if about LSD – cyberpunk revolution enriched with fast guitar riffs, drum beats and rowdy vocals. There are also a few short, noisy, industrial compositions also like Intro, Caught in Time, Tape 2- Further Studies And Strategies, Time Holes, Future Implosion and Outro.
The final LSD product is an example of a very well done job, creative ideas input and professionally drafted bills. The CD has been sold in a carefully designed digipack with the pictures of band members and the lyrics, all printed on a high quality paper.
(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below)
Smartbomb EP |Synthetic Entertainment, 2007|
1. Last Daze, 2. Reset, 3. Hang Up, 4. Ready Or Not
If you look for music with quite amount of energy to let you get up real quick from bed in the morning you should defintely pay attention to Smartbomb by a Canadian cyberpunks from Left Spine Down (know as LSD as well). There are well experienced musicians in the line up to list Jeremy Inkel and Jared Slingerland (Front Line Assembly) as well as Denyss McKnight (ex-The Black Halos) amongst all. They made a variety of shows with The Birthday Massacre, Combichrist, DOA, SNFU, Genitorturers, Chemlab and Front Line Assembly.
This is a very new EP released in 2007 by Synthetic Entertainment. Four really good songs should find an exposure in podcasts, music magazines and all other media possible. The first song on the EP is dominated by punk tunes and rebelled vocals. I'm really happy listening to Reset, as the song has all features to be counted as one of the newest forms of industrial rock ventures with its jumping rhythm, edgy guitars, punk spirit and drum'n'bass beats. Similar vibes can be found on Gravity Kills albums and actually this is the song I paid attention to at once at the band's Myspace profile. Hang Up has more tunes you can enjoy listening also to bands kind of Rabbit Junk or Cyanotic with chopped drums. Ready or Not sounds more like a mixture between punk and metal music, both simple and aggressive.
(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below)
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