REVIEWS

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Drev
Failure

Labile Records

Posted: Tuesday, March 10, 2009
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

Jess Hewitt is clearly influenced by the late ‘90s industrial rock of crossover acts like Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills, and Nine Inch Nails, but the full-length debut from his Drev project isn't so much an homage to those acts as it is a complete deconstruction of them. Though the pulsing beats and bass guitar of "Model" immediately bring Trent Reznor to mind, as soon as Hewitt's reedy vocals kick in things take a drastic shift from The Downward Spiral into directions that such quaint terms as "up," "down," and "sideways" can't even begin to describe, the ambient synths dissolving into glitches and reformatting themselves in new configurations. "Model" is rich and epic, with symphonic keyboard textures erupting behind tinkling pianos and distorted breakbeats, and "Intransigent" shifts from wispy ambient to chopped-up IDM to guitar-backed rock to a mutilated blur of all three. While Hewitt's lack of interest in typical verse-chorus-verse structure makes his compositions a lot less accessible than many of his more radio-friendly influences, the epic quality of tracks like "Sirens" make this a compelling listen; Failure is a little hard to get into, but its overt lack of commercial appeal also makes it a lot less disposable. If Hewitt has a weak point, it's his vocals. At his best, he's like a slightly less distinctive version of Placebo's Brian Molko, and at his worst, he can sound petulant and off-key. His production more than makes up for it though, and if his fondness for glitches, rolls, slices, and chops makes him hard on conventional rhythms and melodies, it's his own voice that bears the brunt of it, twisted and distorted on "Oblique Mind," processed into a robotic facsimile on "Starving," and stacked into layers on "Rise." He's managed to take his own shortcomings and turn them to his advantage; where a more insecure artist would emphasize the vocals, Hewitt manipulates them like any other sound effect in his arsenal. This album's title is at best a half-truth. As a commercial crossover attempt it fails, but as an examination and reinterpretation of industrial rock, Failure is a definite success.