Artist: Binary Park
Title: Worlds Collide
Genre: Electro-industrial
Release Date: 18th March 2011
Label: Infacted Recordings
Album Review
Glitchy Electronica is a tough style to get right. Bands like SKINNY PUPPY and KMFDM make it look quite effortless, but they’re the archetypes, and 90% of the rest of the genre bare more than a passing resemblance to them as a result. Binary park are a bit of an anomaly though. Yes there is plenty of the SKINNY PUPPY meets KMFDM remix about them but they don’t limit themselves to it, and over the course of ‘Worlds Collide’ they touch on a lot of other sub genres including EBM, Noise and Industrial.
The opening two tracks ‘Prelude’ and ‘Welcome Home’ are pretty safe affairs with their SKINNY PUPPY beats and loops with some Tim Skold-esque vocals thrown in for good measure in the case of ‘Welcome Home’. ‘Wiretripped’ on the other hand does an about turn and heads into the realms of late 90s Lords Of Acid with it’s techno dance quality. ‘Silence Is Speaking’ is another nice arrangement that exerts more of it’s own identity, though the vocals feel a little ineffective in places. ‘Fight Son’ has a nice old-school industrial air about it with it’s out of context exorcism sample and choice of 80s synth sounds - however it feels like a song half written, like they just couldn’t get the right lyrics together. ‘Human Disease’ follows on nicely though and with its primitive feel succeeds in feeling like more of a complete song.
‘Running’ is a nod to turn-of-the-millennium EBM and it is a relief when the track turns out to be a full song, and a catchy one at that, rather than just another instrumental filler. ‘Worlds Collide’ hurtles back toward SKINNY PUPPY / OHGR territory, displaying perhaps the best production job on the album thus far, as it goes. ‘Voice Of The Gun’ fulfils a hope that many of the tracks on the album fail to - and that is to take an interesting instrumental and turn it into a great club track - the android-esque female vocals take this song to the next level and make it truly memorable. The penultimate song ‘Speed Of Blood’ is another infectious song that keeps a bit of momentum up despite a lack-lustre predecessor in the form of ‘My Angel’. Finally ‘Dark City’ brings things to a close in an apocalyptic display of noisy industrial that doubles up as the most effective instrumental on the album.
There is obviously a lot of talent in the ranks of BINARY PARK. But it feels as though on ‘Worlds Collide’ they lack focus. An album half the length with a supporting EP would feel like a stronger package especially if the multitude of instrumentals were sent back to the drawing board. That being said ‘Wiretripped’, ‘Running’, ‘Voice Of The Gun’, ‘Speed Of Blood’ and ‘Dark City’ provide some seriously good moments.
Tracklist
01. Prelude
02. Welcome Home
03. Wiretripped
04. Silence Is Speaking
05. Cropper
06. Fight Son
07. Human Disease
08. System Sucks
09. Running
10. Worlds Collide
11. Voice Of The Gun
12. My Angel
13. Speed Of Blood
14. Dark City
Line-up
Huw Jones
Alfred Gregl
Torben Schmidt
Websites
http://www.myspace.com/binarypark
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 6
Sound: 5
Extras: -
Total: 5.5 / 10
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