Virus STN

What's it matter that a traditional structure provides the easiest-to-absorb forms of music? What's it matter that music itself is and has always been slowly devouring itself over and over again in a whirlpool devoid of artistic talent, leaving only those who wish to swim away to carry on any sort of credibility in the art form? It doesn't matter at all, not one bit. As insipid and stupid as the many different "visionaries" of the world may be, there are always things that make music itself worth existing. Things beyond the norm that make you just stare off into nothingness in sheer awe. This album is very much so one of those things, one of the few works I've come across that I find "perfect".

What could possibly be so jaw-droppingly good, so ickily sticky, so compelling as to warrant a perfect score? One of the most beautiful combinations I've ever come across. The riffs sound like some sort of twisted form of Broadway music at times, at others they seem more like droning soundscapes inside the head of a heroine addict. They're just so wonderfully dynamic and complex without seeming convoluted. Many of them sound genuinely SAD! Not in the typical "suicidal depressive black bdsm whateveritis" garbage, they sound accepting like someone who now knows they're doomed to die and doesn't particularly want to fight it. Accented by bombastic drumming (sure, it's provided by a machine, but the production makes it sound so lifelike - more on that in a bit) and a wide array of other influences, the music just grows and morphs all the time. It's through this method that it manages to stay fresh and memorable indefinitely, to rise above music that will be forgotten with time.

Toxik's vocals are similar in the sense that they portray a ridiculously wide variety of emotions, but are different from the traditional fare. He does do the odd traditional black metal growl, particularly "Organisation Contamination", but they're much more rare. He prefers to shout in a very pissed off, ranting sort of way. It makes me picture a mad Frenchman wandering through a dirty alleyway, denouncing anyone he comes across as filth. Other times he mimics the sad qualities of the riffs, sounding like he's singing about how beautiful whatever awful fate lies ahead truly is. They're performed with a great amount of honesty and conviction, something that's painfully absent from most music now. What's more, they're performed entirely in french! The beauty of the language really makes itself apparent here, accented by the lyrics (not published, but easily understandable a most of the time for those who know the language) about disgust and contempt towards our squeaky clean, overly moralistic society.

Speaking of the modern world, we've come a long way in the field of electronics over the years. It'd be foolish to think that the use of electronic instruments would never come into all other sorts of musical realms, and as such they come in here. Both electronic music elements and sampling mingle purposefully with all the other crazy structures to add more and more facets to an already huge amount of work. The opener, "Incubation", would not be the same without the peculiar trip-hop style and powerful snare, or the pulsating electric beats merged with a section of one of Beethoven's symphonies. Indeed, many influences come together on this album to culminate in one grandiose piece of work that, at times, seems to almost transcend music. Hell, at one point the band unashamedly rip-off the theme from the Godfather - but it doesn't sound out of place at all. It just flows right along and seems completely normal. It all works together in beauty and harmony.

It all sounds contrived and over-indulgent, I know, but it really is true. I see it as a sign of truly timeless compositions. Something that's just so big and powerful that it lends itself to such detailed descriptions, something that sticks with you forever and dares to be better than others. This really is one such album, and I find absolutely nothing wrong with it. Even the production aids it, being somewhat grainy yet feeling just warm enough. It's all done just right. It's perfect.

Recommended for fans of Unexpect and, to some extent, Sigh and Wormfood.

Highlights: "Venin Intemporelle, Rouille Universelle, Satan" and "Diapsiquir" if I HAVE to choose. But I don't, so all of them god dammit!

Interesting concept of Satan and evil as being embodied in the ills and stresses of modern life and in the people who may make up its underbelly but in the way Diapsiquir handle it on "Virus STN", the idea becomes not much more than a buffoon's circus. This recording could have been very intense, moody and powerful with a heavy evil atmosphere, jackhammer rhythms, singing humans-turning-into-robots and maybe some philosophising on what it means to be human and to have free will, and to then join Satan's army of servants in the guise of drug dealers, pimps, kidnappers and others who entice others into their master's realm - but instead "Virus STN" offers a 52-minute long harangue of samples, spurts of lightweight death metal rhythms and guitar scrabble, a bit of melodic doom and snippets of found sound and spoken voice all combined in a cut-up-and-paste style overlaid by hysterical histrionic singing and screeching from several vocalists. Not a whiff of a spliff can I sniff here let alone smell any evil sulphurous smoky stuff that might signal Mr Devil's presence within whatever toxic or chemical influence the band refers to. The only bad stink is something akin to that sensational voyeurism the tabloid media indulges in as it hyperventilatingly pursues the American singer Britney Spears's downward spiral into mental illness and chemical dependency.

There are nine tracks on this album but truth is they pretty much all segue one into the next with just the faintest bit of pause between tracks here and there, and with the music as unstructured as it can be - the bits and samples are strung together like beads on a string - the entire album really can be heard as one long track of sound cartoons. The pity of it is that though Diapsiquir may have started out with the best intentions of portraying the evil as it currently manifests in our society and the destructive effects it may have, the end result doesn't leave much of an impression: as soon as the album finishes, you're likely to ask "Well, what the hell was all THAT about?" - assuming of course that along the way you haven't acquired a big thumping headache and have had to resort to chemical dependency in the form of an aspirin tablet and then gone to lie down to escape the music.

If there's a saving grace to be found, it's in those sections where the guys play some actual music (for example, early on track 8) and some genuine feeling is revealed with a hint that if the guys had concentrated on more music and less showing-off we might have ended up with a really substantial record. At the other extreme the big problem with "Virus STN" is the singing: I have no problem with people wanting to use the mike at the same time and if they want to be a rowdy choir I'm fine with that but the yelling and screaming all the way through the album come across as childish and I think watching a troupe of oversized clowns all trying to get out of their teeny-tiny car at once and wacking each other on the nose would be a lot more entertaining. The choice of samples is also something of a problem: I'm not sure how the Russian opera singer fits into the grand scheme of things and the sample of someone who seems simple-minded and who continually mumbles "toxin" or "toxic" to me sounds rather like overstating the obvious.

I can only recommend "Virus STN" to those people who are being victimised by bullies at school, college, work, sport team practice or elsewhere: you buy a voodoo doll at a thrift shop, label it with the name of your nemesis and then blast this album at the doll day and night as long as need be. One day your enemy will wake up screaming and carrying on just like the guys on this album, so much so that s/he will have to be carted away bound and sedated by people in white coats in a white van forever.

Drugs.Creativity.Cities.Needles.Subways.Filth.Whores.Violence.Satan.

This is what we need more.New way of seeing the Devil.Diapsiquir updates and takes Him to the 21st century.Each second of this album is full of madness.Virus S.T.N is full of nyances never heard before.”The Godfather”-theme with pounding of industrial machinery, children playing, speeches, old russian song, “Clockwork Orange” –like synthesizers and black metal.Sounds kind of strange? Only a genius could mix them into a fabulous entity and that`s the case with Diapsiquir.

The vocals are sort of preaching way screaming and they remind of a somekind of a terrorist or a demonstrator.The music varies from fast blastbeats into ultrafast industrial beats and into slow doomish moments of madness.You can never know whats waiting for you behind the corner. If you want to be able to memorize some melodies from the record you`ll have work your way through it several times.After a while the songs will open up and blossom.

On Virus S.T.N there also seems to be guest members.At least there are about ten mugshots in the booklet.Nice looking fellas.The cover includes also interesting pictures: hookers, drugs, filth, etc.

The technicality and structure of the songs are the things that struck me the most.If these guys were on acid during the recordings it makes Virus S.T.N even more interesting record.At least they`re drug policy is not a secret.If they keep releasing this kind of stuff more power – and acid - to them.

New wave (or way) of black metal coming from France with Blacklodge and oOo.Virus S.T.N – The best release of 2005.This hasn`t got a single flaw.Unique.