REVIEWS

Cervello Elettronico
Killer Instinct

Posted: Friday, March 24, 2006
By: Kirsten

Listening to Cervello Elettronico's Killer Instinct demo is like being outside in a rainstorm; the music just flows over you. Considering that Dr. Hellraver of Terrorfakt lists Cervello Elettronico as one of his main influences, I can see why he considers the sound as edgy as he does. The music is not as hard as Terrorfakt or Oomph!, but the sound is reminiscent of both styles, with an additional component that makes me think of Razed in Black or a touch of one of the slightly "bouncier" (say Rotersand) goth or industrial bands that is currently on the cutting frontier of the independent scene today.

The first track on the album, "Blackout" eases the listener into synthetically-driven sound with a heavy bass beat and an undercurrent of German lyrics so smoothly that you hardly realize that you are inside the music. The second track, "Stolen Memories" is evocative (as many of the other songs are) of Einstürzende Neubauten. It samples what sounds like an airplane engine, which is a reminder of Neubauten's live use of an airplane engine as a drum. It is a pop-ish track with some sound effects suggestive of the movie, Tron... for all of those who remember Tron that is; for those who don't, think of Kraftwerk. The third track, "Killer Instinct" is definitely more '80s bouncy synthesizer, and the fourth track, "Brain Damage" initially returns to the earlier, more industrial sound of the album, but which ends with a Rotersand or Fairlight Children beat. The songs, "Plastic Face" and "Rinse with Blood" have some vocals, but the overall sound is like Neubauten or Kraftwerk. Cervello Elettronico's '80s influences are readily apparent throughout the album and the last song, "Separation" ends on a heavier, but still danceable beat.

Overall, the Killer Instinct demo does not have a lot of vocals in the tracks, but what are there are mainly used to highlight the interaction between the sound effects and the bass beat. Dave layers many sounds over each other to create a symphony, but the sounds are distinguishable from one another, which is a nice change from music where the layers are not as readily apparent. What saves the songs from being too similar to each other (as with some synthesizer-based bands) is that Cervello Elettronico does not remain in the genre of industrial, but ventures more into the electro-synthpop sound, which allows for enough variation between the songs to keep the sound very interesting.

Having seen CV live recently, I can assure you that they sound the same as on the album, and as such, music quality is happily the same. An apt description of the show would be to say that it was like being trapped on the dance floor for two hours by a synth-breathing monster; it was a very good show and none of us left the dance floor until the music stopped. My favorite track performed live was probably "Rinse with Blood," where the bass beat is a more heavily layered sound than some of the other tracks and I liked the sampling of vocals. I am looking forward to checking out the full-length album, Elementary Unit.