Switch [reviews]
Updated by Draconina on 06/21/2009 22:38
Visceral |Sonic Shape Records, 2009|

1. Violent Strain, 2. The New Messiah, 3. I Give You, 4. Reconnect, 5. Scratches and Scarves, 6. Aorta, 7. Dusk, 8. Fixing The Flesh: Redemption, 9. The Way You Want To, 10. Licking Wounds, 11. The Hidden War, 12. For You Only, 13. With Me..., 14. Love Is Only A Word, 15. Aftermath


It's the very first time I was exposed to industrial rock music coming from far Philippines. They are a few thousands of islands with different cultures, subcultures and languages what have an impact on a support given to a variety of music styles and their representatives.

It turned out there was a band playing aggressive music and I was introduced to them thanks to one of the travels of Jason Silva from We Got This Far band who likes discovering new bands in other than American countries. He saw the band playing at one of the Philippine music clubs, then send me a CD with their music.

It's clear to me Broken album as well as other older Nine Inch Nails released had some impact on Switch music which turns out both aggressive and dynamical. It's also clear the band doesn't follow the trends or patterns but consequently pushes their own ideas into the songs so that we got both guitar driven but also danceable and ballad songs amongst the 15 tracks on the album.

One of the guys comes from the second biggest Philippine islands Mindanao, where he was exposed to raging Islamic wars, terrorism and bombing what I believe had an unquestionable influence on his emotional music & lyrics due to stress, frustration and fears.

I enjoyed the most such songs like "I Give You", "Aorta", "Fixing The Flesh: Redemption", "Licking Wounds", "For You Only" i "The Hidden War" of the set of 15 songs on the album. They are all filled up with aggression, but "Hidden War" sounds like a soundtrack and it quickly became my favorite song of Visceral CD thanks to its growing atmosphere, which blasted with emotional fireworks in the end of the song finally.

The album contains also danceable songs like "With Me" and not quite interesting to me "The Way You Want To" kept in somewhat electro music tunes. A beautiful suit "Aftermath" ends the tracklist.

The lyrics were sung in a very well understandable English so no worries, you'll get what they mean. Additionally, the CD is professionally pressed and printed. I guess the easiest way to buy it would be to contact the band via their Myspace profile.

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


Myspace