Skinny Puppy- Weapon

Artist: Skinny Puppy

CD Title: Weapon

Label: Metropolis

Genre: EBM, industrial

SKINNY PUPPY IS BACK

In nearly three decades, Skinny Puppy has established itself as a groundbreaking, innovative voice in the world of electronic music. The band is always fearless in both its musical experimentation and voicing a stance on the issues of our times, and the new album Weapon is no exception. Some of the hot button issues this time, are gun control and crack cocaine. In the past, they have touched upon sensitive subjects like human rights,war, and animal cruelty, as brilliantly displayed on their 6th studio album VIVIsectVI.

Skinny Puppy hails from Vancouver, Canada. In 1982 Skinny Puppy was born. Skinny Puppy was initially envisioned as an experimental side project by cEvin Key while he was in the new wave band Images In Vogue. Eccentric lead vocalist and front man Nivek Ogre, brought something bizarre and extraordinary to the already fantastic brew of dark talent that made up the electronic phenomenon known to the world as Skinny Puppy. After 15 studio albums, starting with the demo sessions Back and Forth, to their current album Weapon, Skinny Puppy has more than made their mark in the electronic world.

Throughout the years, Skinny Puppy has flexed it's creative muscles and stretched their experimental limits, but often came up short. Weapon is an impressive throwback to their classic 80's sound. I would have liked them to really go full out classic Puppy and bring back the magic of tracks like "Smothered Hope"or "Assimilate". Though they do come close, as close as they have been since the 80's, it still lacks that certain unmistakable classic Puppy sound with songs like "Solvent" What made Skinny Puppy so great was the layers upon layers of techno industrial beats,disembodied sounds and horror movie samples. It was like listening to an exquisite nightmare of epic proportions. Weapon seems to be the closest thing to pop that they have ever made. "illisiT" and "wornin" are the best examples of this. Weapon never really taps into their twisted, dark and disturbing side like they did in the 80's. Nivek Ogre's vocals teeter from the harsh and evil, slightly robotic, trademark sound to a lighter, more new wave-esque tone. Weapon is a really great album that combines some of the magic of their classic 80's sound, with a more updated, and contemporary electro sound.  Songs like "plasiCage" should do exceedingly well on dance floors.

A majority of the 10 tracks on Weapon has a fairly danceable vibe, that will keep your body in a constant state of motion..However, the soul is there, but not the heart, or should I say, the heart is there but not the soul? Either way, Weapon sounds like it is missing a really important ingredient. Unfortunately, that absent ingredient is the key to making this album something truly incredible. I do hope that Skinny Puppy will eventually really delve deep within and find that true classic Puppy perfection again, but until then, we'll just have to make due with Weapon which is pretty damn good.

Listen to Skinny Puppy- Solvent

Buy Skinny Puppy- Weapon