House and trance music for horror fans was the stock-in-trade of early Acumen, now Acumen Nation and its spinoff project DJ Acucrack. This bundle of the Chicago crew’s earliest industrial-dance experiments differs hugely from their 2005 comp, What the F**k: 10 Years of Audio Warfare, a chronicling of their growth into the psychotic-sounding ruination machine they are now.

From 1989 to 1994 they were almost wholly dependent on Skinny Puppy to lead the way; these songs could all have been out-takes from the Pups’ Too Dark Park and Vivisect VI albums, which, either way, automatically tops what newer techie-doomers are pumping out in mass volume in the 2000s; this isn’t third-hand Puppy but one of their few real competitors back when all music wasn’t razor-sliced for marketing niches. Rollout track “Carthage Six” was most likely one of the first things Acumen ever committed to a cassette, angelic chicks cooing heavenly doo-doo-doos before the rolling and crunching begins.

Fans of KMFDM, Rammstein and all that jazz will find permanent places in their cars for this.

By Eric Seager

Homepage: Cracknation Records