FLESH FIELD - Viral Extinction
Songs: 13  Time:  69:31
Woah.  If you're not careful with this CD, the beats will tear up your floorboards.  The drums on this album have been jacked up to force feed you the music.  Flesh Field is the debut from Ian Ross and Rian Miller, a male and female duo who have just recently arrived on the scene.  Comparisons to Wumpscut and Leatherstrip are justifiable, but Viral Extinction is still a tight knot of pounding industrial dance with minimalistic but still driving rhythms, the way it should be.  The whole feel of the album can be expressed in the first song Heretic.  Heretic starts with a slow buildup of noises and small beats, and then literally explodes into all out industrial war, with fast sequences and a hard beat.  The song is punctuated by various interludes of strings and other softer elements, never letting the listener get too comfortable before the violent dance starts again, a trademark of creativity.  Both Rian and Ian sing, with Ian's higher male vocals being alternately screaming and sung, and Rian's singing in an angelic sort of way behind it all.  Inside is another standout, it being a very noisy dance track full of grating sounds and fast programming.  Prophecy is a slower (but not too slower) piece that has an abstract sequence juxtaposed with some good string work and a literally huge beat.  My quick favorite became Silicon Skies, which is alternately slow and fast, full of thick sequences, and a changing and obliterating mix of beats.  Other standouts include the techno influenced Overload and Where Angels Go to Die, the somewhat gothic and orchestral My Savior, and the fastest track (and most used title ) Cyberchrist, an EBM blowout.  However, since they are new, there are some glitches to work out.  While the lyrics are insightful, and Rian does have a very accomplished voice, she often simply sings along with the rhythm.  The tracks do tend to get very similar sometimes, but not too much.  As stated, these problems are very very minor, and can be attributed to being a new band just breaking through.  Flesh Field has a very bright future ahead.
 
reviewed by D. Sudia
INCEPTION RECORDS                         Flesh Field is:
PO Box 20063 BVPO                                 Rian Miller / Ian Ross
Calgary, Alberta                                        Contact Flesh Field @
Canada                                                        e-mail: FFieldgril@aol.com
e-mail info@inception-records.com       Flesh Field homepage:
INCEPTION homepage:                          http://www.inception-records.com/fleshfield
http://www.inception-records.com