Inertia- Black Ice Impact

Artist: Inertia
CD Title: Black Ice Impact
Label: Cryonica Music
Reviewer: Matthew Johnson
Date: June 1st, 2004

It’s rare to find an EBM album full of honest-to-god catchy tunes. Not just catchy enough to stomp around to in the clubs, mind you, but the kind of catchy that finds you singing them to yourself in the shower or on the way to work. Inertia’s latest is exactly that. Part of the catchiness can be ascribed to vocalist Alexys B., of course. She has a sultry singing style that more than makes up for a somewhat limited vocal range, and she brings a raw organic feel to the music that’s uncommon for industrial. Her singing on Inertia’s cover of Bollywood hit “Shakalaka Baby” almost demands a new genre: call it Hindustrial. There’s more to Inertia than just sexy female singing, though, because even the songs with programmer Reza Udhin on vocals – and Reza’s shouting is as heavily processed and mechanical as anything coming out of Belgium these days – have that same infectious quality. The choruses on “Blank Stare” and “Black Ice Impact,” for example, are belted out in shrieking metallic monotone, but there’s an enthusiasm to the music that still gets you to want to sing along.