Generating Station Complex is the latest album by post-punk electronica legends Cassandra Complex who have been celebrating 40 years of the originally Leeds based band. The album re-imagines many of the bands most legendary songs to sound as they do if you go and see Cassandra Complex live. They start a German tour next week. The album was recorded at Magic Library Studio West in Venice Beach, California, and Magic Library Studio North in Todmorden, Yorkshire, Cassandra Complex are Rodney Orpheus, Paul Dillon, Andy Booth with Volker Zacharias. Produced by Rodney Orpheus and mastered by Maor Appelbaum Mastering in Los Angeles.
The album opens with the urgent synth punk sound of Moscow Idaho an anthem for the sort of town you have to escape, to anywhere else to get a life, like Los Angeles while sounding like a cross between Suicide and Head Of David, while they ask why anyone would want to stay in Moscow Idaho while dancing to the synthbilly backing.
The War Against Sleep and the need to be wired and awake at all times while trying not to submit to the desire to sleep or rest your eyes over the pounding beats trying to release the chains and get on with being up for days on end like you still have a never-ending addiction to uppers to the sound of those machine gun drums.
What Can I Do For You is poppier almost Pet Shop Boys territory, but with a darker edge to the visions they are having and the begging question of What Can I Do for You that you haven't done for me, a question that can have so many complex answers, while the hi-nrg beats and insistent synths add some great stabs and intensity.
Nightfall sounds more like 69 Eyes or Sisters Of Mercy style goth EDM for the coming third world war, turning the world into a nuclear wasteland, they are afraid of darkness falling over western Europe as we must all be at times.
One Millionth Happy Customer is built around a drum machine part and deep intoned vocals, for the lover who might die in your arms, your dreams turning reality, becoming a nightmare for the lovers dancing towards death, they are afraid to get to close.
Penny Century repurposes the White Lines bassline and adds string like synths and a rich baritone vocal line begging for more love and care if you will let them conquer you and be theirs. Second Shot has a cool post punk guitar line decorated with the drum machines pattern heralding the return of the freedom seven and everything that stopped them from getting their 16 minutes of fame.
Ground takes the icy synths adds a compelling drum pattern and questions about just how far we will fall in the world we are navigating through, while time marches on, fighting gravity and an never ending fall into the eternal abyss.
Why has a buzzing synth beat and strings for this harrowing tale of watching his parents die from the shock of being raped by a soldier, the dark despair of what happens next, the rape of his sister and the rage that stirs within, questioning why the world is so dark.
The album closes with March that has a motorik beat and Industrial guitars crying out for the need for freedom, but not the sort that the right often calls for, this is in the vein of Wiseblood while calling for freedom from pain and despair.
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