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Severe Illusion
Accomplishments of Leopold II

DSBP Records

Posted: Thursday, March 30, 2006
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor

Like many releases on DSBP, Severe Illusion’s second album distinguishes itself from the rest of the electro/industrial scene by the cleverness of its concept. In this case, the Swedish duo abandons futurepop’s vague existential angst and EBM’s apocalyptic futurism to focus on a specific historical event, namely the torture and murder of 14 million people during Leopold II of Belgium’s turn-of-the-century conquest of the Congo. This concept is utilized with deliciously dark humor in the album’s liner notes, which read like a parody of a children’s history text and include such discussion questions as “Do you think Leopold was a mean king for cutting people’s hands off? What other reasons besides meanness might he have had?” Like all really well-crafted concept albums however, it’s the music that provides the real impact, and while such tracks as “No Hands” and “The King is Dead” allude to the historical basis for the album, nearly every song here is an exemplary industrial dance track, even divorced from its thematic concept. Severe Illusion blend the aesthetics of contemporary harsh EBM and power noise with a focus on vintage ‘80s equipment, and the result is something reminiscent of early Front Line Assembly or Skinny Puppy, but heavier and more malevolent than anything from that era. “Congo by Force,” for example, employs vocals screamed through a processor, but its feedback-laced beats are as hard-hitting as Terrorfakt’s recent material. “Chimera” is deconstructed rhythmic noise built from shredded drum samples and film clips. For fans of more traditional old-school industrial, “Girl With a Knife in Her Hand” is nicely retro, with videogame effects panning across the stereo channels, while “Natural Causes” is a high-BPM assault of warped analog synths and industrial percussion. To show off their more experimental side, the band finishes the CD with “Good Riddance Frank, You’re Dead,” a mostly instrumental composition in three parts that ranges from grating feedback to stomping industrial to rhythmic abstraction. While a background in the colonization of Africa might help fans understand the lyrical nuances of Accomplishments of Leopold II, it’s certainly not necessary to appreciate the album’s more visceral beats and shouts; Severe Illusion have proven both their intellectual genius and their club appeal with this one.