Binocular

Let me first say that this is my first real exposure to the band. I heard a couple songs on their myspace after hearing some praise for them, and decided I liked what I heard enough to pick up this album. That said, even with this limited knowledge of the band, I can still tell they're not living up to their full potential. But I'll get to more of that later.

This album, on the whole, reminds me of a more industrial-sounding version of Sigh's Imaginary Sonicscape. A pretty heavy focus on synth melodies in many songs, various style shifts incorporated into the songs (hence their self-label "schizo metal"), and a vaguely surrealistic quality across the whole thing. This album, however, remains much more consistent in its sound; "Retroglazed" and "No Coil For Tesla" flow right into each other, while it's hard to believe "Corpsecry-Angelfall" and "Nietzschean Conspiracy" came from the same band, let alone the same album.

So where do the problems begin on what sounds like a rock-solid formula? It's all in the songwriting. Again, I have not heard the band's prior output, but I would not be surprised to hear that the ex-vocalist contributed quite a bit to the songwriting process. Things start off well, with the aforementioned pair of "Retroglazed" and "No Coil For Tesla" showing just how well things can work out. But by the middle of "Headrush Helmet" and "Filthmonger," we're beginning to see far too much of a nu-metal influence, a la 3 Doors Down and company. Where's this influence? The new vocalist, naturally. Unfortunately, the guitars also decide to join in with some boring chugging, seemingly out of the real Ministry-tinged riffs on the earlier tracks. The keyboards and drums try to hold things up, but the mixing seems to favor the chugs and soulless vocals.

While not up to the standards of the tracks before it, "Traces" is still interesting enough to keep things going for a few minutes. As with other songs, the phoned-in performances on guitars and especially vocals severely hurts it. "Headrush Helmet" starts promising, but I cringe every time the song gets to the line "God damn I am in my wicked machine / And I like it." I'm almost certain they ripped that vocal style from Godsmack. The shit continues with "Filthmonger." Fortunately, if you can stand the... ahem... filth of "Filthmonger," "Orgone" rewards you with a fresh breath of derange-itude. It's not going to win any awards, but it's a solid piece with enough shifts of dynamics to make it almost more than a filler track.

"Tight Tie" is a slower piece, but fortunately more industrial dirge than alt-rock ballad. And at this point, I have to consider my score for the album: why would I give something that's constantly in danger of becoming another faceless nu-metal/alt-rock clone anything resembling a vaguely positive score? It's a good question, but then I hear something like the title track. Again, this won't win any awards, but there is a lot of potential here: either potential to be yet unleashed or the shadow of potential of a band past their glory days, I don't know, but there is some gold to be found in here somewhere. "Castle of Clowns" continues to be promising, though taking far too long to get started. This song will likely piss off people who hate Mr. Bungle and Unexpect for their carnival themes for many of the same reasons. What makes this song noteworthy otherwise, though, is that the vocalist finally drops the alternative rock shit and goes for straight-up clean vocals for the verses. Honestly, I'd add a 10% to this album's rating if he just went clean all the way through.

The album stays on track with the train-themed "Transportal" to close out the album, and it seems to bring things full circle, back to the styles used on the opening tracks. But this brings up an interesting question: why even bother with the shit in the middle? We've got some great style changes in here, building up to a great climax towards the end, which would let us move right into "Retroglazed" again... but I don't really want to. The pile of feces that dominates the middle of the album casts a long shadow over the rest. This would have made for a great EP with the following tracklist:
-Transportal
-Retroglazed
-No Coil For Tesla
-Tight Tie
-Binocular
-Castle For Clowns

But the other tracks are just filler or worse. My suggestion to the band? I know he's the new guy, but kick that ass of a vocalist out of the band! He does more to sterilize the sound of the band than anything else. If you want to call yourselves "schizo metal," you need a vocalist who sounds certifiably insane, not some two-bit Hinder reject. The guitarists come from Manes; I know they can do far better than they are. No guitar solos here, only some scattered good riffs... were they just being lazy, or what happened? That being said, there's a lot of possibilities for this band to explore. My recommendation would be to pick up their earlier albums and hope the next one's a bit better.

After three albums, each one more surprising than the other - published between 1997 and 2002 - Atrox has lost their focus a bit with "Orgasm", an album less elaborated and less corageous than usual. Right after it the band went through a crisis due to the leaving of Monika Edvardsen, chamaleon-vocalist which characterized the band's sound more than any other musician since the beginning. The core of the band is still the same as usual (the two guitar players Rune Sørgård and Eivind Fjoseide, plus the drummer Tor-Arne Helgesen), but it's not easy to approach "Binocular" considering that now Atrox are lead by a male vocalist. Rune Rune Folgerø's vocals are great and they sound like a missing like between Mike Patton, Dave Grohl and Snake (of Voivod), but "Binocular" sets itself light years away from Atrox's "Terrestrials". Still retaining the progressive influences, Atrox's music has become more catchy and is leaning towards electro-industrial territories, showing links to the most experimental side of Manes (who share two musicians with Atrox). "Binocular" is an original and stimulating album, but it would have been better if the band had changed name and started from scratch with different foundations: the heritage of Atrox's first three albums is too encumbering, and "La Masquerade Infernale" has been already done by Arcturus ten years ago.