IC3PEAK - Kiss OF Death


[Terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression] Who are these lunatics, and what do they do? 

Hello, IC3PEAK, you're the current best-selling Industrial band at the moment I'm writing this. Is Kiss OF Death (sic) any good? Do Boris and Natasha, sorry Nick and Nastya, have a doozy of an "audio terror futuristic opera" in their pockets, or are they just happy to not be invading Ukraine right now. That was uncalled for, let's give this "electronic, experimental, electronic, industrial, noise, pop, punk, Russia" album the full listen it deserves. 

Http://ic3peak.bandcamp.com/album/kiss-of-death 

AAAAAAAGHHHHRRRUFFLLLEECHH! It gets a lot better after 30 seconds, but that first part is a little too much like Grimes for my taste. 1:10 does it again. This is Birthday Massacre type Beauty/Beast stuff, but it's only the first track, so we have to give it some room to breathe. 

Oh look, a Bring Me the Horizon collab on track two, and there's Madam Grimes herself on track 3. It dampens my personal enjoyment a bit, but i can't call this bad. Weird, but remember that's E=MC%&'s mom lending her guest vocals and fanbase to this album i assume is on constant loop on the coffee machine/spotify broadcaster in the breakroom at Tesla. 

There is also some clear Skynd influence, and that sounds exactly like the ICP Great Milenko laugh on track 5. 

Ok, halfway through and this is actually quite lovely. It's totally listenable, approachable, well constructed Darktronica with occasional uvular bleeding. They have 9 albums and they all look suitably weird. This one has some really pretty melodies that get distorted and interrupted by electronic noisework. Nothing bad here, but not exactly challenging; even the worst parts are still fun. All those genre tags are fair, by the way. But i'm not creeped out, i'm not terrified i've been subliminally indoctrinated into a cult, it's just an interesting album i listened to this evening. I like it, but it feels like a novelty. Let's check out the atrociously artworked CKA3KA (pronounced SKAZKA, not kakathreeka, if you're cyrillically challenged) for comparison. 

Yeah, this is their sound. Haunting Russian folk melodies then straight into Dark Trap. But again, it's like the clichéd kind of terrifying you get at 2pm at the least interesting Coachella stage. I still like it, but for a tour of Industrial this is pretty tame. On the plus side, at least we have an over/under bar to work from now, right?

Join us tomorrow for something a little more Michigany....

Part 2

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