Hansel- Respond_Violence

ARTIST: Hansel
ALBUM: Respond_Violence
LABEL: D-Trash Records
REVIEWER: Matthew J.
DATE: 3-17-08

An unholy combination of industrial, noise, hip-hop, and punk, Hansel's debut full-length album is beautifully harsh and grating, offering a little something to please everyone and more than a little to offend everyone. Fans of the harsher side of industrial and electronic music will appreciate the processed vocals, overdriven guitar chords, and brutal breakbeats of "Greg Lindham" and the jagged keyboards and screaming of "No More Legs." Avant-garde techno fans can dig on the glitches and cut-up classical loops of "Molto Allegro" and the psychotic bass manipulations of "Sickle Celluloid." Drum 'n' bass aficionados can groove to the frantic jungle rhythms of "KLGF" and "Planck's Gruff," itself a remix of the more low-fi hip-hop and punk crossover "Planck's Konstant." No single track on this album, though, is consistent enough in themes and influences to appeal unreservedly to any one scene, and the album as a whole is, if anything, more eclectic than the sum of its parts. The hip-hop rhythms are drenched in metallic reverb or speaker-shredding distortion, the wavering punk vocals are set to looped classical strings, and even the ambient tracks are interrupted by bursts of raw-throated shrieking and jackhammer kicks. Hansel's total disregard for genre concerns and for accessibility as a whole makes this album all the more compelling. It's not going to sell records, it's not going to get club play, and it's not going to turn the duo into superstars, but it's not hard to imagine this debut creating a small but devoted legion of diehard Hansel fans. Check this out if you're into similar genre-defying industrial and punk acts like Babyland or This Song Is a Mess and So Am I.

Visit Hansel online at www.hansel.org for more information.