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REVIEW: AntiMozdeBeast - The Alien Machine

Katherine Russell

With AntiMozdeBeast's new album ‘The Alien Machine’, a new striking industrial electronic terrain has been mapped.  This album stands apart from previous AntiMozdeBeast releases by taking listeners on a tense and unnerving thematic rollercoaster, that's been blended with juxtaposed adrenaline-fuelled electronic rhythms and hauntingly hypnotic beats. 


Combining influences from Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy and Ministry, Gabriel Palacio single-handedly builds upon his signature experimentally industrialised electronic fusion and avant-garde stylistics with a texturally chaotic approach. ‘The Alien Machine’ propels listeners into a new uniquely creative and enigmatic instrumental landscape, shaped by dynamic discordant layering and retro-infused electronic tones to create a mystifying auditory labyrinth which listeners will find hard to escape.  



Opener 'Antigone' sets the tone with its fast-paced ambient beat and oscillating electronic melodies. Introducing a distorted retro-video game feel that continues throughout the album, the track incorporates mysterious undertones with repetitive synths weaving throughout. It induces high-intensity unnerving emotions, that play a quintessential part to the experience of the album. 


 With ‘War Dance’, AntiMozdeBeast continues playing with the listener’s emotional headspace - this time using panicked rhythmic patterns, paired with discordant chords, that echo the stressed emotional state this song conjures up. 


 Symbolising ‘The Alien Machine’ well, ‘Sanctuary’ creates images of being caught under an alien spaceship’s beam in a dark field at night. It features layers of similar rhythmic structures spread in dynamically unique forms throughout, combining a mysterious electronic organ sprinkled with echoes and reverb. This song plays marginally with the stereo mix, weighing heavily to the right with sharp echoes on the left building upon the immersive experience. This track is a journey of discovery that steals your focus, transporting you to another world completely.



‘Poisoned’ throws a more industrial techno beat into the pot, constructing scenes of an underground German techno rave. Palacio’s choice of distorted metallic noises brings an industrial factory vibe that washes well with the fluctuation of rhythmic layers and electrifying up-tempo beat. It ultimately tells a story, but not one understood in any human language so much as one from the alien species beyond. 


Finalising this epic album is our highlight, ‘Ode Wise Dragon’. This calming yet ominous track features sounds akin to a wise dragon whispering messages, encoded in electronic melodies and a slow thumping beat. The colourful crashes and distorted tones build upon the atmospheric and unnerving feeling, that's exacerbated by the dynamic rise-and-falls in the featured musical elements. The crescendo produces a transcendent eery finish with a dramatic end, all to leave you wanting more. What is most poignant in this track is how it weaves into the mysterious world created by AntiMozdeBeast, jolting the listener through varying emotional states to create an adrenaline-fuelled narrative.  



In its entirety, ‘The Alien Machine’ introduces a more thematic layered journey through a world that AntiMozdeBeast has constructed. A wild ride through a mysterious yet stressful alien universe, with a flurry of hectic discordant tones and dark shadowy sepulchral undercurrents. Despite the tense, almost anxiety-ridden headspace the tracks take you to, it is bathed in originality and a unique creativity that would be fitting in a dark, alien-infested video game.


Through the juxtaposing layered elements and the control that the music has on the emotions of the listener, this album is a wild ride to say the least. If you're looking for an other-worldly, mysterious auditory journey, then ‘The Alien Machine’ by AntiMozdeBeast is absolutely for you.  


'The Alien Machine' will be released on January 17th.


Words: Katherine Russell

Photos: AntiMozdeBeast

 

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