The Futile Engine is the latest album by Slighter who are the electronic dance music project of Colin Cameron Allrich and assorted guest vocalists, recorded at The Cell Studio in Los Angeles, the tunes on this album, for me at least, are all best heard in a dark nightclub environment, not at home in daylight hours.
The album opens with ambient industrial noise and bird song on Introspection Illusion as the video games sounds interject, to create a Sci-Fi dystopian atmosphere. A couple of minutes in and it erupts dragging you into a world of hurt, pain that needs to be heard on the loudest nastiest club system you can find, where you may end up fleeing the room to get away from it.
Pulling Me Under (Ft Craig Joseph Huxtable) takes a four to the floor club beat with distressed basslines, almost whispered vocals trying to draw you onto that dancefloor to go dislocate your body and mind.
Have No Fear is repeated over and over a surprisingly pleasant electro dance choon, with more reasons to Have No Fear being intoned under the squelchy distorting noises.
Nostalgia Hysteria feels like a helicopter is whirring just above you, as a hammer hits an anvil repeatedly, with some classic nasty dance noises coming in just before the pumping bass and drums, making this nostalgia for the most messed up nights in clubs like Slimelight, this is death disco pumping its heart while trying to look back to better or worse times.
Memory Corrupter (Ft Steven Seibold and Morgue VVitch) starts to wipe your computers memory clean, just as it strikes at the core of your brain, leaving you feeling like you can't remember what day of the week it is, dismal dark dread corrupts everything in sight, bellowing noise cataclysms obliterating the vocals.
Planet Failure starts as an ambient wash, as robotic vocals repeat Planet Failure, while not listing earthquakes, floods, fires, war and totally stupid politicians among the causes, instead enveloping the listening in a claustrophobic cocoon of stings and bass pulses.
Unitas (Ft Deep Dark Water) takes us deep beneath the waves with sonar pulse bass, this has a driving motoric beat with extremely deadpan vocals, announcing some bingo numbers while telling us we've lost.
Forcefield Operative has an annoying central revolving noise with different percussion samples being set off, as if that Forcefield is repelling you, the electric shocks becoming more frequent as you try to escape.
Dark Divine (Ft Yvette Winkler) is as close to sultry sexy or seductive as this album gets, as the vocals call you towards that inevitable siren who will lock you up in chains in the dungeon, before a good whipping in time to the too fast beat, while all the odd noises impinge on your mind.
Narcodrone is the longest tune on the album at over 11 minutes long, if you haven't imbibed already you need to before listening to this tune. Long stoned drones assault you with crashing sounds, clattering percussive shards of noise disrupt the synapses. Elegiac earthquakes shimmer, shake droning on endlessly, as static impinges delivering part two, distressing drones circling overhead, wandering through a darkened valley near a ditch full of pitch. Eventually the run-out groove is like you've left the needle on a runout groove and the static is coming to get you.
Cold Black Waters (2023 Mix) dips a toe in the waters known as a song with a melody, glorious lush vocals, encased in the sonic miasma, glitchy sounds wave like synth washes with percussive triggers.
Pulling Me Under (Dark Dub) should be on in the dance room at about 4am, as things have gotten totally messy and your dancing with abandon, as the fifth lot of drugs have hit, you contemplate one last drink, but can't stop moving around to this as the bass warps your belly.
Have No Fear (Dark Dub) the album is almost over, this slows things down as you walk in line towards the cloakroom to get your gear and stumble out into the early morning light once more, exhausted by a night of hot sticky clubbing. You think it's the beats coming through the walls in the corridor to the cloakroom, but they have under floor speakers shaking you out to reality once more.
Find Out More at https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/slighter/this-futile-engine https://brutalresonance.bandcamp.com/album/this-futile-engine-deluxe-edition https://linktr.ee/slighterofficial https://www.facebook.com/slighterofficial
