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Suicide Commando
X.20 (Best Of)

Metropolis Records

Posted: Friday, November 30, 2007
By: Mike Ventarola

Here it is, 21 years later and Suicide Commando, the alter ego of Johan Van Roy, shows no signs of slowing down. Suicide Commando leads the pack with a genre all his own, i.e. terror EBM. While this reviewer seeks out skillfully delivered vocals, Suicide Commando was the first musical outfit with distorted vocals who actually did it better than most and to this day, remains true to form.

On X.20, many underground contemporaries lend their hand at remixing some of the highlights of this artist's lengthy career. The opening track from the CD of the same name is a nod to the BTK Killer of a few years back. More than anything, this particular track demonstrates how art imitates life at its most extreme level. "Save Me" opens with a deliciously delightful dirge, which should make all the goth children quite content. The track is a cry for help from one on the verge of self destruction. "Conspiracy with the Devil" is an underground benchmark to beat in terms of heavy pulsating beats, crunchy sounds and vocal overlays. It is hard to imagine any club not erupting into throngs of patrons dancing frantically from all four corners of the room when this comes over the speakers. "Face of Death" musically crafts the starkness of hard reality with the morose and spiritual aspect of the final crossing over. "Love Breeds Suicide" once again manages to weave intricate dirge essences around vibrant electronic beats but added bombastic percussion to elevate the dramatic factor. "Cause of Death: Suicide" remains as fresh today as when it was first released. This is one of those tracks that is hard to ignore and hard to not want to move to. Of all the tracks in this artist's career, this is probably his magnum opus to wake up the slumbering masses on the verge of self annihilation. "Murder" is a chilling testament to the crazy times we live in where psychological warfare prefaces actual destruction on a massive scale.

Suicide Commando's appeal lies in the fact that subtle but essential nuances and intricate melodies are stitched within the framework of the tracks. The casual listener may not seek these sort of things out, yet they still manage to permeate the psyche on such a level to entrance the mind. While Van Roy may be the master of terror EBM, his skill lies in the ability to take timely topics from the headlines and craft them into tracks for a younger generation to digest. As much as distorted and processed vocals have been overused in past years, he still manages to make them sound fresh, largely due to the fact that regardless of how distorted the vocals are made, the listener can fully interpret what they are hearing. The most bewildering thing about the artist's career is the fact that horror movie producers haven't snatched his tracks up en masse for soundtrack inclusion as they are ripe for the picking.

Suicide Commando isn't a one trick pony as there are tracks that also slow down the pace a bit for home listening and digestion. Overall, this compilation of his 20-year career is a wonderful introduction to the available music and a good starting point for anyone seeking to get into this artist.