CD Feature/ Prometheus Burning: "Beyond Repair"
TobiasJust like all projects plowing the field of “shrapnel beats” (as Hive Records so nicely and concisely coined the genre), Prometheus Burning face the dillema of consoling two intrinsically oppositve poles: Aggression and energy. While the former is the main cause for a music which works as a safety valve for artists and their audience alike, it is the latter which really seperates the greater from the lesser gods: If your tracks not only get everybody’s teeth clinched but the hormones racing as well, you know you’ve succeded. As “Beyond Repair” prooves, it takes more than just being mad at the world to get your message across.
In fact, for Prometheus Burning, it takes a whole lot more. This album may well be the wet dream of anyone whose heart glows for technoid power and industrial aesthetics. While many of their label mates engage in mathematical formulas and complex percussion patterns which make your head spin, this still young project takes the genre back to its roots: Right in the first piece, the absolutely maddening “Some things are meant to stay broken”, a Gabba bassdrum rams through rush hour like a heavy cargo freigh train through the night, an analog bass and frenzied shouts following in its slipstream. “Significantly altered” is of a similar nature, albeit slightly more hypnotic and trance-inducing – the four to the floor kick being interrupted by polyrythmic hickups of a futuristic scrapyard. Sometimes, the drums do come broken, though it is less their variation which really matters, but them forming a base for supersonically cheeping bleeps pulsating in irredescent colours. Don’t even start thinking about it too much – if there is a point, then it is that approaching this in an overly cerebral manner means both ignoring that it was conceived with the club on its mind and that it is mainly about the pleasure of “letting go”. And yet, that it succeeds herein not only has to do with the enthusiasm, which shines through in every moment but also in their ability to funnel the aggression and turn it into energy.
Certainly, it takes a lot of nerve to sit some of this through and especially to do so without the strobe light flickering in twisted torture. Prometheus Burning are not reinventing the wheel either and if it wasn’t for a sensible and extremely effective tension arch for the entire record, they could well have ended up getting caught inside the trap of blind aggression. But thanks to more experimental moments and some shorter tracks, which emphasise the apocalyptic ambiance instead of riding the wave of fury, “Beyond Repair” actually takes you on a ride, which gives more than it takes.
By Tobias Fischer
Homepage: Prometheus Burning
Homepage: Prometheus Burning at MySpace
Homepage: Hive Records
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