Sinsect- Buglife

Artist: Sinsect

CD title: Bug Life

Label: Crunch Pod

Genre: Industrial, EBM, Drum & Bass

Website: https://www.sinsect.com

Reviewer: Mirco Rizza

Date: 6-7-11

Sinsect is a hard-hitting industrial strength fusion of power-noise, EBM and drum & bass.

Sinsect was spawned by James Ashley in 1997 as DJ Sinsect in the NYC industrial/noise club scene, with residencies at The Pyramid and Z-Bar, and also had guest appearances at Mother & the Bank. As a natural evolution, he started creating his own material, and worked with other noise artists in NYC, New Jersey, and Atlanta.

Drawing inspiration from a myriad of sources has kept the Sinsect sound in constant flux, with every release being a sonic adventure, from the rhythmic noise of [contained] (2003), the down tempo dark ambient soundscapes of Hidden Agenda (2004) to the harsh power noise beats of Darker Days Ahead (2009).

The newest release in 2010, Shadow Wars, is a 3 track maxi-single setting the stage for the next evolution of Sinsect. Hard, fast and fun, Shadow Wars is a distorted fusion of dark-step drum & bass and power noise, with plenty of dance floor energy. Rounding it out are nine bonus remixes from a wide variety of artists from many different musical foundations.

Sinsect describes his music, style influences and his background in this way.

Proceeding in a listening analysis about this album, I can start to describe my impressions and my sensations about this release saying, first of all, that this album is very interesting because every track is not too similar to the precedent, but, a very important thing (I think), the sound and the overall album succeeds to hold up a link track by track.

The first track entitled “Noisenbassen” starts with a cool electronic beating and rapidly the track has surrounded by an apocalyptic, frantic and mostly “chaotic beating section” which gives a fantastic energy to this first song. Also the voice opening is very cool, appropriate and effectively suitable for this kind of sound. The “frantic” element is globally present in the whole album and always track by track”, it generates in the listener a sensation of speed, chaos, violence and madness suggested by the effective voice. I've the duty to say that is very interesting how this artist succeeds to use dance music synths and at the same time it uses violent noises and keyboards. There is equilibrium in this and this particular mixing of dance music with a violent power-noise and EBM contributes in a real good way to give a strong madness element to the entire album.

The second track entitled “Pressure Release”, remaining on the wake of the first track, accentuates the dance element and it appears more danceable in comparison to the first.

The voice is effective everywhere, at least these are my impressions on.

The vocal parts in the second track hold an obsessive, violent and imperative tone and also this element is present during the entire listening of the album, but the thing that put an element which differs from the rest of the sound, is the introducing of some parts where the vocals appear not violent or “imperative”, but they appear really crazy and bizarre.

This is what differs in the whole song, something of weird and unusual in a contest where the electronic noises are aggressive like many vocal parts.

Well, now we are analyzing the track which gives the title to the album: “Bug Life”.

Listening this track, the concept that Insect has thought this album in a way where every

Song is an evolution of the precedent tracks talking about “frenzy”, “violence”, etc; I think it's confirmed by this title track: the voice becomes more “imperative” and particularly obsessive. This is evident in vocal parts where the singer uses to start saying “This Is My...” in an aggressive manner.

The distorted and mad travel about this fantastic album continues with “Crazy Fuck”, the fourth track, very riches of electro noises intro, no parts sung as the precedent sung parts, cool rhythmic section and danceable parts.

As mentioned before, in this track we find a different vocal style, the voice is clean and there is a reverberation effect.

The voice mood is not violent or “imperative” in this track, rather, it is calm but at the same time I feel a sadic vein in it.

We're arrived at “Burn”, the track which I consider the “monster” of the album.

I've particularly appreciated this track: In my opinion this is the top of the album, an irresistible hit!

This song here, introduces a new element: the darkness.

We are suddenly hit by dark and sinister synths in the middle of the album and the mood becomes more malignant in comparison to the other precedent songs.

With explicit lyrics, high voice pitches, and electronic effects, that breaks into the dark intro which gives a change to the whole song hitting with his contrast.

This track keeps constant that obsessive high voice during the song and it determines itself like an element sound attack.

Well, the release goes ahead with an instrumental track where some cyber-industrial influence element is very accentuated, the beating sections continue on the road of the affectivity and the used synths are “dirty” enough.  After listening to this track I've noticed a strong sci-fi feeling which tends to move the mood and the sensations into an alien ambience.

The next song, “No More Nightmares,” resumes the use of the lyrics, the voice is full of electronic effects and it appears very distorted.

The basic synths of this track tenders to go towards the “dark ambient” music genre and there is a strong presence of electronic and classical synths which generates suggestive sensations.

In the middle of the song the introduction of the old dance synths of 90's substitutes the classical suggestive synths and although the melody is not particularly different, the dance synths created a crack inside the classical music suggestions.

Arriving on the song entitled “Shock Treatment,” emerges in an aggressive manner an electro snare drum rich of reverb which dominates the song.

The techno and electro elements are very expressed in this track, the lyrics are not so determinant, the techno synths uses the classic melody motives of the 90's and the base is dominated by the usual chaotic electro dark carpet.

“Wake up screaming” is a track that takes more ahead the speech regarding the use of the classical synths. In my opinion the rhythmic base is minimal in this case, but there is more space for the synths dialogue. I think that this is the sole track which takes distance from the rest of the sound concept inside the album.

This thing could be positive, but in my personal view, especially in relationship to the next and conclusive song of Sinsect album, first of all, I wouldn't have put “Wake Up Screaming,” as penultimate song, rather a closing song.

Talking about the conclusive song perhaps in contrast with “Wake Up Screaming”, now we're analyzing “Derailer”, the song that closes this album. I can start saying that this track closes very well the entire album: the mood is very cool, the rhythmic parts are cool too, different enough in comparison to the other tracks, but at the same time the beats are not incompatible with the rest of the album.

The relationship between the dark ambient parts which I notice and the rhythmic parts which their effects suggests a sensation of “suspension”, they generate a majestic conclusion to this release, so personally I can say that this work is not something of epic (maybe), but it deserves many attention surely.